#ya ever just out of nowhere remember something exists and mentally snap

[300iqprower]

After Enkidu got one, manifesting an official rank up for this skill before i lose my fucking sanity entirely. Why the fuck does this franchise hate Abs Hassan so much.

[battybatzgirl]

Hey Mr. Sandman, You Missed a Spot

AO3

Summary: 

It's not that Hunter doesn't ever sleep, Eda's come to realize. It was that he falls asleep sporadically, most of the time in really weird places.

Or: 5 times Eda catches Hunter taking a nap

Part 1 of the Finders Keepers Series

---

Here’s the thing about Eda: she loves naps. Eda likes to be cozy, so usually, that equated to curling up under a blanket, lazing around, and falling asleep. The Owl Beast shared that sentiment, the creature that lived within her constantly wanting to nest. Those animalistic instincts were weird, but when you lived in a house with a demon who also liked to bury himself under a pile of stuffed animals, you kind of got used to it.

Here’s the thing about Hunter: he doesn’t sleep.

The kid has been living with them for only about two weeks, officially replacing Eda as Public Enemy Numero Uno in the eyes of the Emperor. When he’d showed up on Hooty’s doorstep, all bloody and barely conscious, Eda thought it was some kind of cosmic trick. The Powers That Be had to be pulling her leg because this was the second time the leader of the Emperor’s Coven had shown up to the Owl House with nowhere else to go.

Luz had been ecstatic to welcome him in, apparently excited to finally fulfill her dreams of becoming a middle child in their weird little found family. King was less thrilled, but eventually warmed up to the idea of Hunter staying with them as long as he taught King his secrets on how to command an army.

Hunter himself even seemed unnerved at the thought of living with them. He tried to leave a few times when he was still wounded, but his little bird palisman (Rascal, she’s heard him say) effectively herded him back into the house by continuously dive-bombing him and nipping at his ears. And after Belos put out a wanted poster for the kid, making him the Isles’ number one most wanted traitor, leaving wasn’t really an option. Not if he wanted to stay alive.

So eventually, Hunter begrudgingly accepted that yeah, he lived in the Owl House now.

And alright, Eda isn’t heartless. The kid was lost, wounded, and an enemy of the Emperor. She can work with that.

Getting to know him has been a challenge, though. Hunter has a lot of weird quirks. He holds himself so seriously that Eda has a hard time remembering that he’s a teenager and not a fully grown middle-aged man. He hardly ever smiles. He’s jumpy, practically jolting out of his skin every time you walk into the same room. He’s clearly Going Through Some Shit, as Eda so eloquently calls it, remembering how Lily went through the same thing when she slowly broke free of Belos’s freaky subjugation.

But still. The kid doesn’t sleep.

Eda first notices it around day four of his residence. She’s up early to go to the market, stepping into the living room and nearly transforming into her Harpy Form out of pure shock when she sees a figure messing with her bookshelf in the back of the room. Wide maroon eyes lock on hers from across the room and she feels the feathers that sprung to her skin recede.

“Titan, kid,” she breaths, “You nearly killed me. What are you doing up? It’s Saturday, you should be sleeping in.”

“Um…I did sleep in,” Hunter responds, as if it’s obvious.

Eda feels a frown tug at her lips, “The sun isn’t even up yet.”

The kid just shrugs a little lamely, and Eda feels a twinge of concern in her chest. (And ugh, feeling concerned for a guy who dangled you over the Boiling Sea is certainly weird.) If this was sleeping in for him, he couldn’t have rested more than five hours.

She steps closer, taking a second look at what he’s doing. Half the books are spread out on the floor, the other half stacked neatly back on the shelves in some kind of order.

He notices her looking, “I, uh, took the liberty of reorganizing your bookshelf. Or organizing it, since it didn’t really seem to have a system.” The kid ducks his head, the tips of his ears flushing pink. “I- I can put it back the way it was if you want, or organize them in a different way.”

That’s another thing about Hunter: he always has to be doing something. Being useful. Without direction, he crumples. It was always, What do you want me to do now, Miss Clawthorne this and I completed this task, Miss Clawthorne, what’s next that. His brain operated on a transactional level—I do this thing for you, you do this thing for me. And since Eda was housing him, he felt like he had to constantly be doing things for her. Constantly proving himself worthy to be here, repaying her. Hunter couldn’t seem to wrap his head around that she didn’t want him to do anything except stay comfortable.

Eda has thought up a hundred different little tasks for him to do in just his first four days. She’s running out of odd jobs to give him, and if she has to keep telling him what to do she’s going to start pulling out her hair.

“You’re fine, kid,” she says. “Keep doin’ what you’re doin’ if it makes ya happy. But you shouldn’t be up this early. You should at least take a nap later.”

Hunter tilts his head. “But that wouldn’t be accomplishing anything.”

“You don’t hafta be working all the time,” Eda stresses. “It’s okay to sit around and just exist once and a while. Actually, I think that should be your priority. Take a nap, relax, go cloud watching, take a walk—any or all of the above.”

“That sounds like doing nothing.”

“That’s because it is doing nothing.”

His face hardens, taking on that soldier-like seriousness that encompasses his entire demeanor. “Being lazy can’t be a priority.”

“Don’t think of it like that, then,” Eda almost snaps, wishing for a nice hot mug of apple blood. It was too damn early to deal with the repercussions of Belos’s all-work-no-play mindset. “Think of it as acting your age. Did you ever get to take naps as a kid in the Emperor’s Coven? Is relaxing just a foreign concept to you?”

He doesn’t answer, staring at her with those bagged eyes and guarded expression, and Eda throws up her hands in defeat.

She leaves then, her patience running too thin to continue arguing with him. She doubts he’ll actually go back to sleep. He probably goes back to doing whatever he was doing with that bookshelf. Eda makes a mental note to tell King to knock all the books off, just so Hunter can reorganize it later. Just for something for him to keep him occupied.

1.

Eda doesn’t even notice the first time it happens. It was one of Luz’s friends, Gus, who pointed it out.

The kids were gathered at her home after school, spread out on the floor of the living room along with various pillows and blankets. Luz found some card game she knew buried somewhere in the piles of human trash Eda has laying around, and the girl has been spending the better part of an hour trying to explain how it works.

“So the Wild Card doesn’t make you turn into a wild animal?” Willow questions, holding up a black card with looks like a colorful pie chart on it.

“Nope!” Luz says cheerfully. “It just becomes any color you want it to be to go with the rest of your hand.”

“But the card doesn’t actually change color?” Amity asks.

“No, it only represents the color,” Luz clarifies, and Eda has to admit, her girl has a ton of patience. She’s been quietly watching from her place on the couch, half-listening to their conversation, half-reading the Isles’ latest edition of You Gossipy Witch, a tabloid where a writer is speculating about her true form. Apparently, some people think she was raised by feral, wild owls on some far away barrier island, and has come to reside in Bonesborough just because she ran out of mutant rats to eat.

Weird.

But entertaining!

Gus holds up one of his cards, “So are blank cards bad, or—"

King jumps over his shoulder, landing on the deck of cards in the middle of their little circle and making them fly everywhere. “I have taken dominion over ALL YOUR CARDS. All of you must grovel for a taste of my wealth!”

“Actually, the point of the game is to get rid of all your cards,” Luz reminds him gently. “That way, when you get down to one card, you shout Uno! And you win! If no one else makes you draw anymore, that is.”

King deflates a little, apparently put off by the idea of less is more. “Oh.” Luz smiles and pats him on the head, and he brightens up. “Okay, let’s play, because I wanna make all of you draw as many cards as possible! You'll drown in your cards! Choke on them, even!”

As they start gathering up the cards that King threw everywhere, Gus lets out a little gasp. “You guys—is Hunter asleep?”

That immediately draws Eda’s attention away from the magazine. Her eyes flicker to the blond witch, laying on his stomach just on the edge of their group. He was still having a hard time socializing, especially with Amity, but Luz was determined to include him in all friendship activities. She said wanted to teach him how to be a kid, and hell, if anyone could knock some seriousness out of that boy it would be Luz.

Hunter is indeed asleep—his face is mushed into the forearms pillowed under his head, and his red palisman has weaseled its way to nestle in between the crook of his elbow. His breath comes out in soft little sighs, and Eda feels something in her melt.

“Awwww, he looks so peaceful,” Luz croons, mushing her palms against her cheeks. Amity’s already scooched past her, snapping photos on her scroll. Eda can’t blame her. She knows a good blackmail opportunity when she sees one.

Eda’s off the couch and catches King mid-pounce. “Whoa there, none of that buddy.”

“But Edaaaa,” the demon whines, his little arms and legs flailing in mid-air. “I have to conquer him when he least expects it!”

“Ehhh, let the kid sleep. Save your conquests for when he’s awake and can put up a fight.” Eda sets him down in his place in the circle, and the kids all glance at each other before turning back to the cards.

She notices that they’re more mindful to keep their tones softer, probably to not disturb the sleeping boy. And when Hunter wakes himself up about half an hour later, they don’t mention it, seamlessly integrating him back into their game.

2.

The second time it happens, Raine is walking Eda home. It’s early in the evening, and the pair just got done with a fabulous date—a picnic with apple blood and sweet (and stolen) baked goods? Titan, take Eda now, she’s found her perfect match.

She’s still riding that high, not noticing Raine stopping until they tug on their clasped hands. “Hey, who’s that? Is he okay?”

Eda follows where they’re pointing their finger. It’s Hunter, slumped against the base of an oak tree, fast asleep. His chin is tipped forward and a book open on his chest, and even more strangely, there’s a small pile of leaves on his lap.

“Oh, that’s just my—” Eda stops herself, the word catching in her throat. Hunter was a child in her care, yes, but he wasn’t quite her kid. Not like Luz or King. The blond witch was still too jumpy, baring his teeth and snarling at anything that tried to get close to him.

He calls her Miss Clawthorne, for Titan’s sake.

“—Hunter,” Eda finishes lamely.

Raine raises an eyebrow. “Your Hunter?”

“He’s uhhh, one of Luz’s friends who just so happens to be living with us. Not a big thing.”

Raine shoots her a deadpan look but strides forward anyway, kneeling next to the sleeping blond. They keep their voice to a low murmur, “Should we wake him? That can’t be comfortable for his neck. He’ll probably be sore later.”

“Eh, let him rest. This is more sleep than he usually gets.” Eda steps closer, kneeling down on his other side. It’s the side that has his scar, the slightly raised red tissue standing out even more so than usual now that he wasn’t constantly moving. She’s almost asked him how he got it, but he’s clearly sensitive about the subject. She’s seen the similar marks on his arms, and something tells her there are a whole lot more scars that he’s hiding.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out who gave them to him.

Still, it’s hard to ignore just how young he looks. When he’s stripped of all of his snappy comebacks, quick defenses, and that guarded demeanor Belos forced onto him, he’s reduced to exactly what he should be:

A kid.

“Oh!” Raine startles in surprise. Eda looks up to see the cardinal palisman fluttering down from above them, carrying a few leaves in its beak. It hops down onto Hunter’s lap and deposits the leaves in the little growing pile on his leg.

A smile worms its way onto Eda’s face. She runs a finger across the little bird’s head, “Trying to keep him warm, huh?” The bird lets out a trilling note of confirmation. She lets the bird be, turning back to Raine, “I think Rascal’s got this covered. If he hasn’t come in before nightfall I’ll come out and get ‘em.”

The bard casts one last glance down at the sleeping boy before they stand. “Y’know, he kind of reminds me of someone.”

“Oh yeah?” Eda weaves her arm through Raine’s as the pair reassumes their walk.

“Yeah,” Raine hums. “He kind of has the same build as someone I met when I was held hostage in the Emperor’s palace. The Golden Guard. Did you hear that he ran away from the palace? There've been rumors that the Emperor himself is tearing apart the Right Arm looking for him.”

“Uh, about that...”

Raine stops, turning to look at her square in the face. Eda gives them a sheepish, toothy grin.

“Oh my god,” Raine says. “You adopted the Golden Guard?”

“Hey now, adopted is a very strong word—”

The bard cuts her off with a delighted laugh. “How am I not surprised?” Eda feels heat rise to her face, but can’t help but return Raine’s infectious smile. “Only you, Eda. Only you.”

3.

The third time it happens, Eda’s passing through the upstairs hallway, intent on curling up into her nest for an afternoon nap of her own. She hears a shuffling noise as she passes by the glorified storage closet that they gave Hunter as a room, and can’t resist a peek inside.

What she finds is definitely…not what she was expecting. Hunter is laying flat on his back on the floor, his feet elevated on the little cot they’d given him. Yeesh, that couldn’t be comfortable. Soft snores woosh past his open lips, his face turned toward a crystal ball that’s playing some cartoon he must have been watching before he fell asleep.

His body is nearly covered in stuffed animals.

“King,” Eda hisses. The horned perpetrator is in the middle of dumping his entire army onto the blond witch’s chest, pinning down his arms with plushies. “What did I tell you about burying people alive?”

The demon pauses from where he’s been slowly arranging his army over Hunter’s sleeping form. “He’s got plenty of room to breathe! I didn’t cover his face,” King protests. “Can’t subjugate someone who’s dead.”

“No subjugating—” your brother, she almost says, “—Hunter.”

King squints at her, but then grumbles and starts slowly taking the stuffed animals off the boy’s body. Crisis averted, Eda slips back out into the hall, mind swirling. That was the second time she’d almost referred to Hunter as hers in passing. The feeling is too raw to speak out loud yet, but there’s a growing warmth in her as she watches Hunter acclimate to his surroundings in the Owl House. With every day that goes by, he’s more comfortable around her, around Luz and King and Hooty, and he’s starting to come out of his shell. He’s growing softer, less quick to snarl, becoming more Hunter and less Golden Guard.

Unconsciously, Eda’s started viewing him as part of their little family. Two weeks ago, that thought would have made her uncomfortable. Now, she welcomes it with open arms.

Ugh, she’s getting so soft.

4.

The fourth time it happens is when Eda’s flying home from visiting Lilith. She’s only been gone for the day, and is hoping that leaving Luz in charge hasn’t led to any freak fires, the resurrection of the dead, or other various natural disasters. Unfortunately, even her most responsible kid is pretty reckless, so Eda’s expectations are set pretty low.

It’s probably sometime around 2 a.m. when she makes it home sweet home. She swoops in close, intent on landing on the front door but stilling mid-air when she sees something on the roof of the tower. Even from up here, it’s not hard to distinguish the form of a looming body.

Eda’s heart leaps into her throat and she takes Owlbert down into a dive. Her body is tense when she lands, her staff already aimed toward the person lurking by the edge of the roof. “Alright listen bucko, you better step back or—wait.” She sees what looks like a lump of feathers sitting on top of the person’s head, and Eda squints in the darkness. She quickly pulls out a light glyph, sending the tiny ball of sun forward.

“Hunter?!” Eda’s tense posture relaxes. The kid doesn’t answer, and it takes her a beat to figure out why. He’s dead asleep, slumped precariously over the telescope they use for stargazing. Eda has no idea how he’s even standing at all. Kid probably had a ton of practice of falling asleep on his feet during long, boring meetings with the Emperor.

“Wakey, wakey.” She places her hand on his shoulder, gently, but he wakes up with a full-body jerk, startling the palisman on top of his head. The cardinal chirps once in irritation, fluttering to rest on Eda’s shoulder instead.

Hunter’s eyes are wild for a moment until he seems to register where he is and who he’s with. He relaxes then, letting out a yawn so huge it would put any lion to shame. “…Eda?”

“The one and only,” Eda says, ignoring how her heart squeezes at the kid finally calling her by her name. “Wanna tell me why you’re up here in the middle of the night?”

“Waitin’ for you,” he mumbles, voice rough with sleep. His eyelids drop and he sways dangerously on his feet. “Wanted to… t’make sure y’got home safe.”

The warmth in her chest expands and eclipses her entire body in that fuzzy feeling she gets whenever one of her kids does something particularly adorable. Thank Titan it’s dark and Hunter is too out of it to notice the smile that spreads across her face. If he was fully awake, Eda gets the feeling that A) he probably never would have admitted that he was worried about her, and B) would have snapped at her for smiling at him like that. “Well, I’m home now, so let’s get you to bed before you topple over.”

Eda wraps her arm around his waist and nudges him along, practically carrying him back downstairs, their palismen following close behind. She doesn’t mind. Someone had to make sure he didn’t fall off the roof.

“Night, kid,” she says, tucking him under the blankets on his cot. Hunter doesn’t respond, already having slipped back into unconsciousness. And if she brushes his bangs tenderly out of his face, no one ever has to be the wiser.

5.

The fifth time it happens, Eda’s gotten used to it. It's not that Hunter doesn’t sleep, she’s come to realize. He just falls asleep in weird places. Why, she has no idea, but honestly, the kid looked so tired all the time, she wasn’t going to question it. They had bigger things to worry about.

The Day of Unity is just around the corner, and Belos has become more irritating than ever.

Eda hadn’t even thought that was possible for him, but apparently, it was. The scouts around Bonesborough have tripled, their captains leading more and more raids, butting into shops to check everyone’s papers, and invading random districts.

Oddly, Belos’s priorities seem to have shifted. He’s still sending out grunts to round up any wild witches, but the guards have been playing a weird sort of hide-and-seek, going beyond just patrolling the marketplaces to actually tearing into people’s homes. From what she’s heard, the guards never take anything, just searching the place top-to-bottom before leaving empty-handed and moving on to the next house.

Belos was looking for something.

And unfortunately, Eda’s got a pretty good idea of what he’s after.

Said thing just so happens to be slumped across from her at the kitchen table, dead to the world. It’s late into the night, and most of the kids have already gone to sleep. Too on edge to lie down, Eda’s been keeping herself busy by concocting more potions while the late-night news plays on her crystal ball in the background.

Hunter, striving to be helpful, volunteered to stay up and help.

It wasn’t long before the kid slowly started to nod off, face supported by his palm as his eyelids started to droop. He’d been in the middle of mixing two ingredients—highly flammable ingredients, mind you—and Eda plucked the vials out of his lax grip just in time. Honestly, it was a miracle the kid never killed himself in the Emperor’s Coven with how randomly he falls asleep.

He probably never got the chance to sleep at all, a voice reminds her. She remembers how dead-exhausted Lily was during her first few days at the Owl House. It was probably safe to assume that the Emperor had a habit of running the head of his Coven into the ground.

Hunter has been picking up on Belos’s tightening grip, too. He’s been getting quieter, more reserved. He’s come to the same conclusion that Eda has: the Emperor was tearing apart the whole of the Isles to get him back.

Why, though, is anyone’s guess. Hunter has long since explained that his uncle always said that the Titan had big plans for him, and it probably has something to do with the Day of Unity, but beyond that, the Emperor had always kept him in the dark. Luz has a crazy theory involving clones and blood magic, but that sounds like it’s a plot point straight out of one of her Azura books. King thinks Belos wants his artificial staff back, and Hooty predicts the Emperor is just sad because all his Coven leaders are leaving him to join Hooty’s superior best friends club.

Whatever the reason, Eda’s made it pretty clear that she’s not gonna bend to Belos’s intimidation tactics and turn him over. That smarmy gold jerk could set the whole Isles on fire and Eda still wouldn’t hand him over. Hunter’s part of the Bad Girl’s Coven now, and Belos can just suck it. And she’s not afraid to say that to his stupid face, either.

So when the cauldron at the end of the table that holds the scrying potion suddenly begins bubbling on its own, Eda may very well get her chance.

She’s up on her feet in an instant, dashing to the other end of the table just as the steam rising off the potion begins to warp into a familiar figure.

“Edalyn,” Belos greets, his voice sharp like a dagger. “I do hope I’m not interrupting your evening, but I needed a word with you.”

Ugh, scrying potions weren’t supposed to work both ways! Belos was too damn powerful. He could probably peer into their lives as much as they could peer into his.

“Sorry, but now’s a bad time,” Eda shoots back. “Why don’t you hang up and call back literally never?”

“It’s come to my attention that you have something of mine,” the masked man continues smoothly as if she hadn’t spoken. “I’d ever so appreciate it if you gave it back.”

Eda’s lip curls back, feeling the itch of feathers poking out of her joints. She wants to shift into her harpy form and leap through the potion to claw out his eyes. “Sorry, Belos,” she says, dripping smug bravado, “We wild witches operate solely under the laws of finders keepers. Your kid? Mine now.”

Eda expects that the Emperor would very much like to vaporize her. “Make your threats wisely, Owl Lady. You have no idea what you’re up against. Everything will be easier for you and your little friends if you just hand the boy back over to me.”

“Fat chance.” Eda throws back her shoulders and shoots him a sharp grin. “Sounds to me like you’re threatening one of my kids, and we weirdos stick together. Going after one of us is basically asking for all of us to bring you down. Remember how well that went last time? How my human cracked your mask and publicly humiliated you during your big let’s-turn-Eda-to-stone ceremony?”

The Emperor looks as though he has some choice words to say, but Eda doesn’t care. Hunter is her kid now. She glowers at him through that mist, voice lowering in with deadly promise. “You’ll have to drag him back to your Coven over my dead body.”

“That can be arranged,” sneers Belos.

“Try me, antler boy.” Then Eda whacks the cauldron and sends it tipping over the edge of the table. The connection is immediately severed as the potion goes splattering over the hardwood, and the resounding CLANG of the bowl makes Hunter shoot violently out of sleep.

“Huh?! Whassit—Eda? What happened? Are you alright?”

“Fine, kid,” she says, swallowing down the rage that’s still bubbling hot in her throat. “’S alright, just got a little clumsy and knocked over a cauldron. Sorry for waking you.”

“Sorry for falling asleep,” Hunter responds. He grabs a towel and hurries to clean up the oozing purple goo.

Eda waves him off, “Eh, I don’t mind. You kids need your rest. Growing bodies and all that.”

Hunter still hesitates, looking at her for a beat too long as if double-checking to make sure she wasn’t really upset. Eda holds back a sigh, a twinge of pity flickering through her that he’d even have to look at her like that in the first place. All the damage from Belos couldn’t be wrapped up in a month, she supposed.

She snatches up the cauldron, still dripping with the ruined potion. Peachy. She’ll have to call Lilith to get her scrying potion recipe. Though maybe not having this in the house was a good idea. Eda doesn’t want to risk His Royal Highness dropping in on any more unexpected house calls.

“Eda?”

She looks up at Hunter. The kid chewing on his bottom lip, wringing the half-soiled towel between scarred hands.

“I just…I wanted to say thank you,” Hunter says shyly. “I know having me here hasn’t exactly been easy—not only because of the fugitive thing, but because I’m…” He flounders for a moment, and Eda can only pretend to know what’s going through his mind right now. “…me,” he finishes finally. “You’ve been so kind and patient with me, it’s so much more than I deserve, and no matter what happens next—”

“Hey, no.” Eda cuts him off with a swift and gentle beratement. She sets the cauldron on the table and crowds closer to him, curling one hand around his cheek. The kid automatically leans into the touch, and Eda can’t help but wonder how Belos could have ever hurt a child who was as sweet as this one.

“You may be one bratty little shit, but you’re my bratty little shit. And Mama says you deserve all the smothering that comes with being a child of the Owl Lady.”

Then, to prove her point, she swoops down and quickly places feather-light kisses on the tip of his nose, forehead, and his scar, until Hunter squawks and shoves her away. He’s practically glowing, flushed all the way to the tips of his ears.

“Gross,” he snaps, rubbing furiously at his face. “I’m never helping you with your potions ever again.”

“I’ll accept your terms. Now get upstairs, it’s way past your bedtime.”

“I don’t have a bedtime, I’m not a baby.” Hunter sticks out his tongue but obeys, slipping out of the kitchen and disappearing into the rest of the house. Eda shakes her head as she watches him go.

Kids. What could ya do with ‘em?

[freddie-weaselbee]

Capture the Flag//F.W.

Pairing: Fred Weasley x Fem!Slytherin!Reader

Warnings: Language, Cedric hate (but like loving hate)

Summary: The big capture the flag game had commenced, and Fred quickly found himself captured and thrown into the other team’s slammer. Little does he know he has a cellmate who’s willing to do whatever it takes to win, even if that means teaming up with a Gryffindor. 

Prompts: Detention/Being Detained with dialogue prompts “oh well fuck me then,” and “half the time I get too embarrassed to say anything”

Word Count: 5.1k

A/N: Day 6 of @theweasleyslut‘s 2k writing challenge --au where there’s no voldemort so Cedric’s alive and let’s say Umbridge never existed--

Fred had almost gotten away with it. If it weren’t for that meddling Hufflepuff Cedric Diggory and his band of stupid cronies. 

“You’ll pay for this, you hear me?” he yelled out, but the handful of boys dragging his body across the grounds just snickered and ignored him. 

“Oh shut it, Fred,” said Cedric, walking in front of the group. “You got caught. Rooky mistake. Now, you get to face time.”

Fred groaned, letting his shoes scuff in the dirt in hopes of slowing the boys down, or at least annoying them. It was his own fault he had ended up in this situation. He had gotten too reckless, trying to take on a group of Ravenclaws all by himself. He should’ve known it would’ve been a trap. 

The official student Capture the Flag game was a tradition amongst all Seventh Years that took place the spring right before they graduated. It was completely student-run, mostly because if the teachers found out they would shut it all down, but that did mean that the students could be as creative and brutal as they wanted. Fred, pioneer of horrible pranks and traps that attacked the opposing team, was a prime target for capture. 

The gang of opponents that had captured Fred was slowing now, having reached their destination. In front of him, Fred saw Hagrid’s hut now painted yellow and blue, the house colors of team one. Hagrid was nowhere to be seen, but Fred figured he probaby would be fine with the vandalism of his hut as long as they cleaned it up once they were done, and with magic that would be fairly easy. 

“Into the slammer,” one Hufflepuff boy snickered, opening the door and throwing Fred in. “We have one guard watching the hut. Any attempted escapes in which you’re caught result in a one hour penalty from the game, but if you manage to escape without notice--”

“I know the rules,” Fred muttered. “My older brother bloody made them 10 years ago.”

Cedric, who had been standing outside the door, smiled wryly. “See you soon, Weasley. I’ll make sure you’re the first to see us carrying your flag back to our home base.”

Fred mouthed along to what Cedric was saying with a mocking expression plastered to his face. “This isn’t over yet Diggory!”

The other boy just snickered before slamming the door shut and locking it from the outside. Fred raced to one of the windows which had been boarded up for the game. He was able to peak out a hole between two of the boards. Cedric and the other boys were making their way back into the forest, whooping and slapping each other’s backs in celebration. The leader of the group spotted Fred watching them, and before he and his friends disappeared into the trees he cupped his hands over his mouth and called back one more thing. 

“Enjoy some one on one time with the other inmate!”

Fred was confused by what Cedric had just said. Other inmate? What could he possibly…

For the first time, Fred actually looked around the small hut and was surprised to see a girl, clothed in black pants and an emerald green top, headband, and facepaint laying down on the couch, feet thrown over the armrest. “Hello.”

He stepped back for a second, hesitant and fearful. “Y/N? What are you doing here?”

You gave him an ‘are-you-stupid’ look before sitting up. “Same as you.”

Fred mentally smacked himself for being so dumb. When deciding which houses were on which teams, the four names were thrown into a hat and then two were pulled out at a time. This year, against the wishes of every single person in both houses, Gryffindor and Slytherin were on the same team, which meant Fred was staring at one of his teammates dressed head to toe in your signature house color. 

Still skeptical, as most Gryffindors were of Slytherins, he sidestepped over to a nearby chair, eyes never leaving you. Your face shone with amusement at his obvious fear, and it only made you all the more confident. Godric how he hated that. 

“I’m not gonna bite, Freddie, you can join me on the couch. It’s much more comfortable than Hagrid’s huge chairs.”

Fred’s face tinted red at the nickname. He couldn’t remember the last time you had spoken to him, much less called him Freddie. It made him slightly uneasy, how comfortable and self-assured you were. It always put him on edge. 

Eventually, after a few moments of silence and pondering, Fred decided that joining you on the couch would be fine. You were teammates after all, and what was the worst you could do to him? He sat down, stretching as far away from you as possible. 

You cocked an eyebrow, scooting closer to him as a test. He flinched away. 

“Bloody hell,” you said, moving back to your original position, “you really are afraid of me aren’t you?”

He didn’t say anything. What could he say? You always made him speechless, for reasons he never understood, heart beating faster whenever you were near. He assumed it was out of fear. You were sorted into the evil house after all. 

“My friends all called it too,” you continued, smiling a dazed smile. “They always said that you would get weird around me, something you never did with anyone else. Am I really that terrifying? Afraid I’m gonna bite you in your sleep?” Your eyes shone as you teased him, and he couldn’t decide if it made him want to relax and talk to you or get the hell out of there immediately. 

You leaned your head toward him again, but this time he didn’t move away. You seemed to study him, looking his face and body up and down as if you were taking mental notes of every part of his person.

“For someone so incredibly loud, you don’t seem to talk much when I’m around.”

“I…” He trailed off, words catching in his throat. 

“Well, that’s gonna have to change if we’re gonna get out of here.” You clapped your hands together and stood up, brushing the dirt off your pants and fixing your ponytail. “What’s the plan, prank man?”

He stared at you dumbfounded, even more so than he was before. You reached out your hands to pull him off the couch and he reluctantly took them, brows still furrowed in confusion. “The plan?”

“There we go, I got ya talking!” You cheered loudly, beaming at your teammate. “And yes, the plan. For how we’re gonna, y’know, get out of here and get the flag and beat all these losers.”

Fred’s throat was suddenly dry. A plan? You expected him to have a plan? What kind? He’d been there for no more than 5 minutes and you were already throwing him back into the game. 

“I...uh, I don’t h-have a plan.” 

You crossed your arms, staring down at him and biting your lip. “Really? You, Fred Weasley, don’t have a plan?”

“Why are you talking to me like we’re friends?” Woah. That came out way harsher than he had wanted it to and he regretted it the moment it left his lips, especially seeing you wince at his blow. You covered it up quickly, face becoming darker with determination. 

“We may not be friends, your words, not mine, but we are teammates. And I don’t know about you, but I like to win, and I’ll be damned if I’m stuck just sitting in here for the rest of the game because you don’t want to be partners with the likes of me. Now are you in, or not?”

He hated how quickly your tone had changed, starting as a warm playful banter and now becoming something hard and defensive. For reasons unknown to him, at that moment he would do anything to see that other side of you again, the poised and bold persona you always made sure everyone saw. But it was never a cocky confident, not how he could be sometimes. Rather, it was just assured. You knew what you wanted and what you were worth and you didn’t let anyone give you shit for anything. He envied you for that quality sometimes. The amount of time and energy he’d put into hiding his insecurities, and here you were being more confident than he could ever pretend to be. 

He realized that you were still waiting for a response. Forgetting his nerves and the butterflies in his stomach that were always there whenever you spoke to him, he sat up straighter and mustered all the charm and confidence he usually carried. “You really think I’d let you win and take all the credit for yourself?”

A smile grew back on your face, one that Fred thought he would give anything to preserve. 

“Alright then Freddie--oh, can I call you Freddie?”

He nodded, shyly at first and then more forceful. “Yeah, but I think this would be more fun with codenames.”

Your eyes grew wide at his suggestion and you started jumping up and down, energy rustling inside you just begging to get out. “Yes!” you almost screamed. “Oh perfect, ok, you can be...Eagle 1. Ooo, I like that. And I’ll be…”

“Why the 1 after it?” Fred asked, interrupting your thoughts. 

“Because it sounds cooler,” you replied immediately. You snapped your fingers. “I’ll be Mantis, like a praying mantis. That’s cool. Ok, sound good?”

“Sounds perfect, Mantis,” he said, holding his hand up for a high five. You had to jump to reach his hand, giggling at the use of the new nickname. 

“Alright, Eagle 1, any observations?”

Fred scanned the room, mind whirling with ideas. His eyes landed on the corner, a brick structure cemented into the wall. “Actually, I think I do have a plan.”

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

“This was a very stupid plan!” 

You had to whisper yell so the guard down below, a Ravenclaw girl, couldn’t hear you. You and Fred were currently on the roof of Hagrid’s hut, holding on for dear life and trying not to make a sound. Somehow, against all known laws of physics and magic alike, you had both climbed up the chimney and had failed to be detected so far. 

“Shh,” Fred said, looking around for a way down without being discovered. 

“What’s the next part of the plan?” you hissed, nearly losing you footing on the steep slant of the rooftop. 

Fred looked down sheepishly, glad it was too dark for you to see his ears grow red in embarrassment. “I didn’t think that far yet.”

His admission almost made you fall off the roof. “Oh, well fuck me then! How are we supposed to get down?”

“I’m thinking, I’m thinking! Just give me a minute.”

The hut was small, meaning that the girl who was walking circles around the bottom would do a full lap in about 30 seconds, and they would be visible in 15 no matter where they dropped down, if they could even make the drop without breaking a limb. Plus, the noise would no doubt alert her, and no matter how fast they ran she had her wand and would stun them before they got more than 10 metres away. You and Fred had your wands confiscated, which made this whole ordeal much harder, if not impossible. So the ground was out of the running. 

Fred turned his head to the sky, wishing he had his broom so he could soar over everyone. Over everyone… That was it! 

“Come here.” He grabbed your hand, yanking you away from the chimney and to the edge of the roof. 

“Freddie, if you push me off of this I swear to Salazar that I will--”

He clamped a hand over your mouth, effectively cutting you off. You glared at him but stopped trying to talk when you saw what he was looking at. A group of people wearing blue and yellow were not too far off, and they were heading your direction. If they got any closer they would most definitely see the two of you up there and you would be screwed. 

“Listen to me,” Fred said, quickly and quietly. “See that big branch over there?” Fred pointed at a thick branch that was extended toward the hut, about a metre away from the edge of the roof. “I’m going to throw you onto that--” your eyes widened in surprise “--and then I’m going to jump onto it as well. From there, we take the high road, climbing from branch to branch to make our escape. Understand?” 

Before you could say anything, shouts rained through the air. 

“Look, up there!”

“On the roof!”

“Oh fuck, it’s Fred and Y/N, they’re escaping!”

Wasting not a single second, Fred grabbed you under the armpits and tossed you with all of his might, sending you screaming through the air. You landed harshly on the branch and scrambled to keep your balance. Spells were blasting through the air, barely missing you. Fred took a few steps back in order to get a running start, but right as he was about to jump his foot slipped. 

He pushed off with all his might, hoping against all hope that he would still make it there. A spell raced by him on his left side. This was it. He was about to get caught, again. 

Then, against all odds, something grabbed him. He looked up to see you, legs wrapped around the branch and struggling to keep your balance, both on your hands grasping onto his with all of your strength. It took him a second to realize that you had caught him, but when he did he swung his other arm up to grab the branch, allowing you to hoist him up. 

“Stop them!” He didn’t have time to thank you or celebrate the victory. Still holding his hand, you shuffled toward the trunk of the tree, 

“Follow me,” you said, letting go and crawling out on another branch. You hopped from tree to tree, always finding another large place to grab onto or walk across. You both went as fast as you could without putting yourself in any danger of falling. After what felt like an eternity, you both failed to hear any more shouts or voices. You must have lost them in the thick forest. 

“I think…” Fred said through panting breaths. “I think it’s ok to go down now.”

You nodded, gesturing for him to descend down the tree first. When your feet finally touched the ground you collapsed in exhaustion, arms and legs sprawled out. Fred soon joined you, his head right next to yours as your breaths slowed and went back to normal. 

“That was fucking incredible,” he finally said. You laughed, coughing a bit as you did so, and turned to face him. 

“It was, wasn’t it.”

“I’m serious!” he said, turning on his side. “You were amazing. I thought I was a goner. How’d you catch me?”

You shrugged. “I’m fueled by fury and spite, and there’s nothing I hate more than a cocky Cedric Diggory.”

He laughed, reaching out to rub a hand up and down your shoulder. “You and me both, love.”

His eyes widened at the accidental nickname but you didn’t seem to mind. You just continued to smile before sitting up, leaning back on the palms of your hands. “Alright, love, what’s the next step?”

Even though you said the name in a teasing manner, it didn’t stop Fred’s heart from fluttering in his chest. He shook his head, telling his stupid thoughts to leave and never come back. There were more important things to deal with. 

“Now, we get the flag. We just need to find out where they hid it.”

He stood up, staring out at the expanse of forest surrounding you both in all directions. If he were Cedric, where would he hide the flag? 

“This might take a while. We’ll have to scour the West side, the East has already been checked, but I supposed we’ll have to double check just in case--”

“It’s in the tree by the Black Lake.”

Fred froze in his tracks. You had said it so casually, as if you were just telling him what day of the week it was. 

“What?”

“The Black Lake,” you repeated nonchalantly. “I followed Roger Davies as he made his rounds and he kept going back to the lake, like an alarming amount of times. And when we were being attacked at the hut, the group was definitely coming from that direction. And one of them had birch leaves all over her clothes, and the only birch tree is the one that is right by the lake. I say, who would climb that tree if not to hide something? It’s not tall enough to be a lookout tree and it’s not thick enough to hide anything or anyone bigger than, say, a flag. It’s gotta be there.”

He stared at you with his mouth hung open, completely dumbfounded. For the umpteenth time that night, you made him speechless. 

“You’re fucking insane,” he finally said, rubbing the back of his neck as he continued to stare at you in surprise. “That’s incredible.”

“Thanks,” you said, winking at him. “It’s a gift.”

You reached a hand up to him, asking for him to pull you off the ground. He did so, and you immediately linked both of your arms and started off to your right. He didn’t know how you knew which way the lake was when you were both so deep in the forest, but he decided not to question it. 

The two of you walked in silence for a little bit, you deciding to skip alongside Fred in order to keep up with how fast his long legs carried him. 

“Y’know,” he said, breaking the silence, “you’re a lot more...chipper than I expected you to be. 

Without missing a beat, you rolled your eyes and looked at him. “Why? Cuz I’m an evil Slytherin beant on world domination?” You spoke in an imitation of a dark voice, wiggling your fingers like you would when describing something as spooky. 

“Well, yeah,” Fred admitted, suddenly feeling bad that he had always assumed so much about you that was obviously not true. “You guys don’t have the best reputation, that’s all.”

“Oh and all Gryffindors are superheroes that are meant to save the world?”

“That’s not what I--”

“I know,” you interrupted, “I’m just teasing. I hear it enough anyways that it doesn’t bother me anymore. The people who care will get to know the real me, and those who don’t try just don’t matter.” You shrugged as if it was the simplest thing in the world and Fred wondered how long it must’ve taken for you to be so content with it, how long you must’ve beaten yourself up for something you couldn’t control until you were finally at peace with just being who you were. 

“I want to care,” he said without thinking. “I mean, I want to get to know you. You’re a lot more fun than I expected you to be.”

You laughed, nudging him with your shoulder. “And how come you’ve never tried talking to me before? We have gone to school together for, oh I don’t know, 7 years now!”

Although you were just messing around, your words hit hard. He had had classes with you for 7 bloody years and not once had he reached out to you for anything other than when you were assigned together for a project.

“You kind of called it earlier.” He said, making you furrow your brow in confusion. “I was a little bit afraid of you. Well, maybe afraid isn’t the right word. Intimidated, that’s it. You’re just so...I don’t know how to describe it, but you make me feel funny.”

“Funny?” you asked, now more muddled than ever. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t kow,” he repeated. “My heart starts racing and whenever I say things to you my mouth starts to go dry. Hell, half the time I get too embarrassed to say anything! I don’t know if it’s cuz you’re a Slytherin or because you’re absolutely stunning--”

“True true, continue.”

He laughed, leaning in to you as he did so. “And so incredibly humble, it appears.”

“Ah, yes, a trait we both share,” you replied. “It was you who deemed himself the ‘Prankster King’ as well as started the ‘Hogwarts Biggest Hottie’ competition just so you could convince everyone to vote for you, was it not?”

“Yeah, and bloody George won,” Fred grumbled. “We’re identical for fucks sake!”

“Well, if it makes you feel better, I think you beat out George on the attractiveness levels.”

Fred perked up. “So you voted for me then?”

“Actually,” you said, an evil smirk growing on your face, “I voted for Cedric.”

His jaw dropped and you took off running through the forest, crying with laughter as he chased after you. 

“You bloody traitor, I’m the attractive one! Get back here!”

You sprinted through the trees, dodging trunks and ducking beneath branches praying that Fred wouldn’t catch up to you. But before you knew it, you had been tackled to the ground, flipping your body around in the process so you were now pinned beneath Fred, heads facing each other. 

Both of you were still laughing, you wiping tears from your eyes at the chase that had just ensued. 

“Say you were lying,” he demanded. “Say that I’m the most attractive one.”

When you refused, he had to resort to a kind of torture that he only used in the most extreme circumstances. He started tickling you. 

“Ok, ok!” you screamed through your fits of laughter. “You’re the most attractive guy here, I swear it on Salazar himself!”

Finally, his fingers released from your side and you were given a chance to actually breathe. It was then that he realized how close your faces were. Mere centimeters apart. How easy it would be for him to just lean down and capture your lips in his, kissing you with all the breath he had left, letting his hands roam up and down your sides as yours got themselves tangled in his hair. How easy it would be to forget about the whole game and just spend the rest of the night wrapped around each other under the light of the pale moon. He dipped his head down, slowly closing the gap, your voice hitching in your throat as you licked your lips and closed your eyes, their color shining so clearly. 

Fred suddenly sat up. Your eyes. He could see them, and he could see them well. The moonlight was shining just enough to allow him to see the color. Which could only mean…

“We’re here.” Sure enough, Fred had tackled you right at the edge of the forest by the clearing, much brighter than it had been in the forest. You both quickly made to get up, dusting yourselves off and avoiding eye contact as much as possible. 

“Well,” you said, not daring to take your eyes off the birch tree in the distance. “Ready Eagle 1?”

Fred smiled, getting his feet ready to make the fastest sprint of his life. “Ready Mantis. On your mark--”

“No I get to say it! I’m the one who got us here after all,” you argued. 

“Ok but who got us out of the hut?”

“I saved your ass from falling off the damn thing!”

“Well I--”

A branch cracking from behind you broke both of you out of your playful argument. 

Fred looked at you and raised an eyebrow, offering his hand out to you. “Together?”

You took his hand and nodded. “Together.”

Fred squeezed your fingers tightly in his, staring at the target ahead. 

“One..” he said slowly. 

“Two…” you followed, catching a glimpse of a blue and yellow flag at the top of the tree. 

“THREE!” You both sprinted through the clearing, feet carrying you as fast as they could as you raced to your destination. A loud whistle was being blown off to the right and shouts came from the left but you both just ignored them as you kept running. 

A huge body appeared in front of you, almost out of nowhere, wand at the ready. You screamed in surprise and hit the person square in the jaw, sending them stumbling backwards until they tripped and fell back on their ass. 

“Shit, sorry Roger!” you yelled back. Fred swore he could’ve kissed you right then and there. 

You both made it to the base of the tree, not sturdy enough for the both of you. “Give me a boost,” you told Fred. He cupped your foot in his hands and hoisted you up, jumping out of the way just in time to miss a hex coming his direction. Your hands and feet moved as if you were a monkey swinging through vines. You heard grunts and yells from the ground but were too focused on the flag to care. 

With one final push, you grabbed it, yelling triumphantly as you gripped the prize with all your might. All you had to do was get back to your team’s side and victory was yours. 

“Y/N!” You looked down to see Fred standing at the bottom of the tree, two more boys laying on the ground and holding their noses. He must’ve taken them on with no wand and still managed to beat them. Fucking legend. 

“Jump down!”

You were alarmingly high up, something that hadn’t occurred to you until just then. It panicked you to think about jumping. Maybe you could just climb back down? But even as you thought about that you saw more people coming, ready to capture you both again. This was your only chance. 

Clutching the flag with all of your might, you jumped down from the tree, screaming as you free fell through the air. You landed not on the hard ground, but in a pair of strong arms that steadied you and held you bridal style. 

“See, now we’re even. We’ve caught each other.”

“Stop flirting and fucking run Fred!”

He did as told, taking off with you still in his arms, the flag in yours. Even though he was carrying your body his adrenaline still gave him enough energy to run like the wind, just as if not faster than many of the others chasing them. 

Over rocks, through a stream, past so many others who tried to stop him. But he wouldn’t stop. He just kept running and running and running until--

“Fred!” Angelina Johnson and George saw you both in the distance. They grabbed their wands out and hexed those in your pursuit, stopping a Ravenclaw girl just as she was about to hex Fred’s legs. You could see the line you all had drawn shimmering in the distance. More Gryffindors and Slytherins saw the commotion and raced to help, slowing down as many opponents as they could. 

You were 50 metres from the line. 40. 30. 20. 10…

Fred’s legs gave out, a mere 5 metres from the line. Someone had finally hit him with a curse, sending him sprawling out on the ground. You gasped as your body hit the ground, rolling across the grass, closer and closer and--

A firework exploded, then another, and then another. The signifier of victory. You looked up to see what had happened. You were on the ground as well, your right arm laying in front of you with your right wrist and hand over the line. The hand that had been holding the flag. 

“We did it!” You didn’t know who screamed, but whoever started it set a trend of wild cries and yells, whoops of victory and laughter filling the air. Your friends were by your side in a matter of seconds, helping you up and to the other side. 

You stumbled a bit, the reality of what happened finally hitting you. “We won!” You and your friends jumped up and down, hugging each other and screaming as loud as you could. You were bombarded with questions, everyone wondering what happened and how you managed to pull this off. Ignoring them, you looked around for Fred, who was starting to push himself off the ground. 

You dropped the flag and raced over to him, grabbing his arms and putting them on your shoulders to help him balance. 

“This is Mantis calling Eagle 1,” you said, barely audible over the celebration. “We did it. I repeat, we did it.”

Fred looked up, face covered in scratches and bruises, but you guessed you didn’t look much better. “As much as I like the name Eagle 1, I think you should go back to calling me Freddie.”

You laughed, leaning your head into his chest. “Roger that Freddie.”

He removed his hands from you shoulders and moved them to your waist, spinning you around in the air before pulling you into a bone crushing hug. “We fucking did it! Suck it Diggory!”

“Suck it Diggory!” you repeated.

A chorus of ‘suck it Diggory’s reined across the grounds, Slytherins and Gryffindors alike chanting it repeatedly. 

Fred finally lowered you to the ground and rested his forehead against yours. “Go out with me,” he said. “On a date. Go out with me.”

“What, jumping off roofs and out of trees and running for your life through a dark forest doesn’t count as a date already?”

He laughed and closed his eyes, relishing this moment and thinking about how much had happened in just a few hours. “Fine, a second date then. Will you go out with me on a second date?”

You brought your hands up to his mess of hair, twisting a lock in your finger and sending shivers up and down his spine. “Only if you promise that it’ll be even more exciting than the first. Think you can top this?”

“Oh, love, you have no idea what I’m capable of.”

“Try me,” you replied, pulling his head down to yours and sealing your lips together in a kiss. 

All of your friends as well as Fred’s just stared in awe, wondering what the hell happened that suddenly you two were snogging in front of everyone. You’d explain everything in due time, what was the rush? And you’d have to make sure to thank Cedric Diggory for locking the two of you up together. How it had changed everything.

Tag List:

@famdomhideout @amourtentiaa

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[leviiattacks]

Two Faced | Chapter Eight

↳ levi ackerman, the very person who was about to kindly behead you by a surprising turn of events manages to become your loving husband? you would be elated if this was true love, but it’s all thanks to a mysterious magic spell that your life is spared, for now at least.

pairing :: duke!levi x duchess!reader genre :: royal au ??? (at this point idek) angst, fluff, slice of life etc ?? word count :: 4.8k author note :: i’ve been very ill so yeah, not the best writing but i really can’t go that long without wanting to write so i ended up writing an update, i hope you enjoy it, it’s longer than usual :D sorry for any mistakes it hasn’t been proof read at all :-( → next part coming soon!!

“Hey, newbie you haven't spoke about your home town much have ya?"

You lift your head, verifying Reiner's suspicions with a nod. You recall he's the same distasteful blonde brute who made those snide remarks about Hange. He must be at least a towering six foot if his shadow is able to cover the majority of the Sun's rays from hitting you.

You would maybe bother to give him and his inquiry more attention than you currently are if he hadn't been so unnecessarily impolite during the morning speeches.

Calves yelping in stinging pain from the first tastes of the full time training regime you simply cannot find the effort to strain your mind with small talk.

Temples throbbing it feels as if a sword has been forced through the side of your head,  but that's not it at all. Reiner has thrown a small rock at you and you hear him chuckle under his breath.

Twisting your position so you face him you glare in displeasure.

Although you don't particularly enjoy the idea of joining Levi's unit and having to become a concealed agent of sorts you can't really take your pickings at how it is you wish to survive. You're going to have to deal with it and you've come to the stage of acceptance now.

However, you are not willing to respect the attitude some of these cadets are giving you, it's clear there's already a strong hierarchy in place.

Reiner just so happens to be one of the big guns from what you've been able to observe. He possess strong upper body strength and his hand to hand combat isn't a laughing matter either. That means he's higher up in the ladder of cadets, that's for sure. To top it all off you know you're not as powerful as other members in the team in terms of skill and he's probably silently making a mockery of you for it.

Pursing your lips you decide to play this game cautiously, asking him what it is he needs from you isn't the best option. You're aware he's after something, it's written all over his face. You practically know every deceptive look in the book off by heart. You suppose it's the only perk you got out of living in a noble household for most of your life.

"Why do you care?" You bluntly question him.

"Ohh, you're feisty. Might not want to butt heads with Annie."

"Not sure who that is but I don't plan on it."

Turning away from him it look like you're distracting yourself by collecting pieces of firewood. Trailing around you act as uncaring as possible to annoy him. You need to gauge this man's reaction somehow.

Your plan seems to be working in your favour because you're able to see his footing shift from his natural stance, it looks as if he's about to risk charging at you due to your vulnerable position but you rotate again offering him a knowing smile.

You don't tell him you're conscious of his suspicious nature but if he's quick witted enough he'll be able to figure out you aren't a threat and apparently don't have a clue what it is he's up to. The only reason he'd even consider attacking you would be if he saw you as an issue. For now your act should at least keep him at bay.

"Fine. I'll tell you about my hometown, I'm just..." You pause to make yourself look believable and proceed to look up at him through your lashes, you dart your gaze away and awkwardly scratch the back of your neck exuding coyness.

"I'm incredibly homesick. I miss mother. I always made supper for her, now I can only pray she's not eating burnt chicken." Your act has to be working because his eyes soften and he takes half of the firewood in your arms offering to help you carry it.

"My mum's a great cook, can't relate squirt."

"Who you calling squirt?" You playfully snap back.

"I call everybody that, even Captain Levi... Well, when he isn't around to hear it."

You bite the inside of your cheek at the mention of the Levi's name.

“So you and the Captain? What’s that all about?” His question makes no sense at all, one minute he wants to prod and poke in your personal home life yet the next minute he's asking questions about Levi. The doubts you have surrounding him only thicken.

You take a moment to consider his question,

“Whatever do you mean?” Clueless, you're delivery is excellent. Acting naive is easy enough, everyone within the corps has already decided that's what your automatic disposition is.

Reiner gives you a skeptical look then smiles faintly, “Glaring daggers at Jean after he got handsy with you?”

You cover your mouth with your free hand and laugh so hard the firewood nearly flies out of your grasp.

“Me and Jean are friends, and Levi? He just wanted to find a reason to get mad at us probably.” You hope the explanation suffices because you truly have no idea why Levi had done what he did.

Reiner hums in approval at your answer but he then grins.

“You on first name basis with the Captain?”

Fuck, you called him Levi.

Play it cool.

“Huh? When have I ever said his first name?” Clueless. Your delivery is still perfect.

“Just now.” He fires back, Reiner doesn't seem to be letting up but he doesn't know how smooth of a liar you are.

Living with your father for all those years conditioned you in ways you hadn't even noticed until quite recently.

“Did I? Pardon, I didn’t mean for it to slip out. Sometimes I silently curse him out in my head and forget to add his title.”

Your acting is impeccable, Reiner has no reason to doubt you. As you expect he doesn't instead he shifts the conversation to his hometown, just like you he doesn't explicitly mention a name. Reiner is sharp but he hasn't noticed the way you've left a name out just like him. He's terrible at catching out his own kind.

You decide at that moment that Reiner Braun is a liar. The accusation is more of a hunch meaning more investigation is required.

You won't inform any of the higher ups about it just yet.

The walk back to base is filled with excruciatingly troublesome small talk and you make a mental note to take Mikasa along with you next time it's your turn retrieve the firewood.

You can't afford any more close encounters with Braun or any of his possible accomplices.

Sniggers batter your ears as soon as you step foot onto the grounds, you have a sixth sense when it comes to spiteful bad-mouthing and after the abysmal day you've had you anticipate there will be unpleasant commentary.

"Seen the way Y/N ruined the assault course today?"

"We're the finalized cadets across all the regions of Paradis. That means we have to rely on that embarrassment to fight titans."

"Good Lord, someone have mercy on our souls."

Fellow cadets press on in their criticism thinking you aren't within earshot. That, or they purposefully aim for you to pay attention to the disapproval they have of your presence.

But, you do understand where they're coming from. You make another mental note - practice a bit more later today.

The gossiping isn't anything you're unfamiliar with, your father's palace never offered kindness to you or your existence. In fact it's rather comforting being talked badly about behind your back.

That statement sounds absurd but you can't explain it. Maybe it's due to Levi typically hurling his unnecessary remarks right at you without warning. Then again he does provide everyone with that treatment, even Commander Erwin.

As you hurry away increasing the distance between you and your loud mouthed team members you spot Levi from the corner of your eye. He's in conversation with Hange but you notice how his jaw is clenched in frustration, you feel a pinch over your skin when he spares you a fleeting look. Eyes acquainting yours. Paying  no attention to him you walk away as fast as you can.

The cadets only blow up in volume now, they definitely want you to hear what they have to say.

"Maybe we should ask the higher ups to throw her ou-"

"Questioning authority? Pesky mutineers aren't you?" Levi's booming voice shakes anyone within a five metre vicinity, he comes out of nowhere and seems nothing short of furious.

"You're all," He continues, voice rising, "Incredibly spineless aren't you?"

One of the cadets embellishes their face with a scowl, it doesn't go unnoticed by Levi but he astonishingly doesn't lash out, physically at least. His deathly glare is more than enough to finish the job.

Stupidly you suffer feeling your heart palpitate in your chest watching him talk to the group of three. Stupidly, you're getting your hopes up again.

He scoffs coldly, "If you're all talk why not offer to duel her?"

It doesn't take long for your heart to stop throbbing with its previous intensity. You know it was too good to be true. Levi suddenly defending you that is.

The gesture isn't done to protect or shield you. No, you're sure this man loathes you and is intending to persist on making your life as bleak and dreary as possible.

"Up to a battle Y/N?" The unnamed blonde cadet's scoffs in derision and you find yourself wanting to punch her square in the jaw.

Irritation sears through you but you meekly shake your head mumbling a weak "No thanks.", you're much too afraid to duel anyone just yet and you don't remember her from the training sessions. She must have been in a corner keeping to herself.

With all that being said and done you pathetically withdraw, and just like the past few days you sense Levi's piercing gaze erupting into your soul.

The blistering Sun hits every nook and cranny of the training ground. Waking up early already has you wanting to pass out and the heat isn't any help.

The crowd of cadets mumble in fatigue but observant Mikasa jabs you in the shoulder pointing out how far away Jean has stood from you.

You feel guilty that Jean had to suffer through the humiliation tossed at him yesterday but you are grateful to not deal with his constant questioning and talkative self this early in the morning.

All the way at the other side of the throng of soldiers he stands with Bert, who might you add is a mammoth of a man.

Through some digging (more like asking Mikasa) you've discovered he's close with Reiner and the blonde cadet from yesterday's confrontation, turns out she's the Annie that Reiner warned you off.

"ATTENTION!" Hange sing songs at the front of the training ground. They're jumping around along with Squad Leader Mike checking if everyone's in the correct uniform - Apparently the year prior a cadet showed up wearing a thick cardigan and fainted from heat stroke...

“Today’s exercise is a time to redeem yourself!” Hange’s eyes dart towards you and you smile at one another.

“A FIGHT TO THE DEATH!”

Everyone murmurs looking at each other in pure confusion.

“A fight up against another person. Whoever wins their individual fights will receive extra special privileges." The explanation seems simple enough and you’re confident that if you’re put up against the right people you can make it out safe.

The promise of a reward is also enticing.

The 104th Training Corps are thrilled, there’s nothing too hazardous about the task and it’s nothing difficult to ask for. Even you’re looking forward to it. The chance to rescue your reputation has you pumped up with adrenaline.

“My, my my. Don’t excite yourselves just yet little hens, there’s a pretty little catch.” Hange's voice is laced in mischief. This can't be any good.

Everyone stops breathing in unison and it’s pin drop silent.

“You must cause harm to your opponent in some way. Whether it be making them faint, breaking an arm, breaking a leg. There are no rules when it comes to playing dirty!”

With a playful shrug of their shoulder Hange hops off the podium.

Squad Leader Mike pulls out the list of competitors. He’s decided the line-up on his own and begins the announcement with Bertholdt.

“BERTHOLDT HOOVER..."

Bert turns to look back at Reiner hesitantly and for such a giant it’s adorable how worried he is when everyone else is perturbed thinking about the poor individual who has to go up against him.

"AGAINST Y/N L/N!"

The crowd falls silent and your mouth is wide, this is unjust there’s no way this is allowed.

“Hey, don’t you think that’s kinda unfair?” Krista speaks out for you even though Ymir is by her side trying to talk her out of getting involved.

“She stands no chance against him.” Reiner is supporting your cause too.

Mikasa takes a step forward. “I agree, it’s not right, may I take her place instead?”

“No, no! It’s alright, I’ll go for it.”

Honestly you don’t want the corps to see you as a coward. Bravery and courage is what brought everyone here. Your story is different. You’re here to selfishly save your own life, you aren’t anywhere near as valiant as the rest of them. The very least you can do is partake in activities correctly.

Stepping up to the podium you stand by Bertholdt he gives you a pitiful look whilst he mutters an apology.

Mike continues announcing the names. A few include Jean against Mikasa (Jean may as well forfeit), Marco against Annie and Connie against Reiner - that pairing eases you. At least you aren't in this alone. You and Connie stand no chance against those beasts.

Everyone lines up in their separate areas and again Bertholdt is profusely apologizing asking if you want to fake faint or anything of the sort. You shake your head and promise to give it all you've got.

And then the games begin at the sound of the bell, and damn that Bertholdt because he isn't keeping to his end of the bargain. He lunges forward viciously aiming to crush your entire body but you swiftly dodge, he tries the same approach but when you duck out of the way again he stops knowing he needs to rethinks his strategy.

"Just give it up I'll win either way."

Well, the Mister nice guy act was definitely a believable performance. He was so convincing you even contemplated feigning unconsciousness when he proposed the idea to you.

Bertholdt is much slower than you giving you more time to deliberate your incoming moves. If you can get him to edge close enough to a nearby tree and deceive him into colliding with the oak trunk you should win - only on the condition that he passes out.

The scheme is far-fetched but it's your only hope.

Dashing from various corners he flies after you, each time unable to catch up to you.

That is until you stumble and lurch to the ground. The wind is knocked out of your lungs and you panic when a large hand clutches at your ankle. Your solution? Booting him right in the teeth.

However with an earth-shattering amount of force Hoover's hold on your ankle doesn't weaken. Instead he tightens his hold like a vice. You feel it bruise and the violet discoloration that'll be present in a few hours makes you wince.

Entire body going limp on command, you stop yourself from breathing - another talent you picked up back at the palace to avoid extra beatings.

When you no longer thrash around Bertholdt stalks in to check in on you and as expected he’s now towering over you, blood overflowing in terror.

"SQUAD LEADER HANGE, CAPTAIN LEVI SHE'S NOT MOVING!" He's roaring for their help frantic and anxious. If he's caused any permanent damage he's as good as dead meat.

"Oh my Lord. I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry."

Bertholdt's voice is fractured in unadulterated horror and judging by the direction you hear it at he has to be facing away from you.

Unbolting your eyes you learn your assumption is correct and despite hurried footsteps being within audible range you take your chance by the reigns.

Leaping to your feet and with no forewarning you swing your leg to the back of his neck. Stunned by the surprise attack he falls to his knees and you situate yourself in front of the oak tree you've been eyeing from the time the exercise began.

"You cunning bitch." Staggering back up he makes a swift rebound. At this point all mercy has left him and his one true aim is to completely pulverize you.

Everything is falling into place. All you need to do is wait for the right moment and finally you come across it when he suddenly pounces for you. Darting to the left you leave the space open for your prey.

Poor Bertholdt falls right into the palm of your hands like a rag doll. His momentum can't be controlled and he smashes headfirst into the trunk with a loud crunch sounding out. Bark splits and scrapes off the tree upon impact.

His head has to throb and you don't want to imagine how painful it is to feel the rivulets of soreness.

He doesn't get up and only groans, you feel half bad but after the tricks and antics he pulled you come to the conclusion that it's all deserved.

"Well, Y/N, you've proven yourself to be quite quick witted." Hange's praise is strange to hear but you beam proud that you've proven your worth.

"Oi, don't get ahead of yourself." Levi orders. "It could have been pure luck."

In spite of Levi's pessimism you bask in the glory of your win.

A week into joining Levi's unit you're becoming more accustomed to the new environment, in fact the gossiping and horrible rumours stop completely after your win and interactions with your fellow comrades feel easier and lighter.

You think the taunts will have only got more relentless after the duel fiasco but you suppose Annie chose to be considerate and take pity on you.

"Your progress has been remarkable so far." You jump when you hear Jean's deep voice appear right next to you.

Looking around to see if any other cadets are around you finally release a breath you didn't even know you were holding in.

"Ah. Thank you." You murmur quietly.

"I know it's been a week since I was scolded by the Captain but this won't count as flirting will it?"

Impeding the one sided conversation you're reflecting, you're not sure what exactly about. Probably whether or not you should maintain the discussion - if it can even be referred to as such.

Forget it. You know what they say, you only live once.

Flicking his forehead you roll your eyes, "We were never flirting he's just an over dramatic, bitter hag. I put my money on the fact he's never felt the touch of a woman before."

Jean's eyes widen in disbelief, you half expect he'll split open in tremendous laughter but he looks terrified. Then you become conscious of the fact he's not even staring at you, his eyes are engrossed by whatever is behind you.

Unfortunately for you your body tells you all you need to know. His cologne floods into your nostrils, you can't even reassure yourself and pretend it's anyone else, you know he's the only one who smells that strongly of fresh linen.

Being unable to see him doesn't stop you from imagining his dark lifeless eyes accompanying themselves with what is before them.

It doesn't even take Jean a minute to abandon you, he breaks out into an awkward smile, hurriedly pats your shoulder before dashing away, dispersing all the way to the other end of the hallway in a matter of seconds and turning the corner away from you.

Heart rate soaring you hesitantly spin on your heel. Levi's stood there, looking beyond unimpressed.

You intend to breeze past him, cool and collected. You take a step forward but God has never been one to bless you with luck, stumbling and tripping over thin air lands you flying.

Ready for impact you brace yourself but it never comes, instead solid hands are firmly placed at the small of your back steadying your position and your palms have unceremoniously landed atop his torso.

"Play along." Levi's voice is low and rumbling, and you can't look him in the eyes. Not out of fear or dread, more so exhaustion but you muster the energy to look to your left. There Erwin and Hange stand giggling to themselves like children. As quick as you spot them they vanish in the same fashion. It's as if they were never there.

You're worn out and fatigued wanting nothing more than a good night's rest. If there's one thing you haven't grown used to it's the lack of sleep.

"Let go." Moving to shift his hands away from your waist you halt your movements when he without warning lets go of you, not even giving you the opportunity to renovate your balance.

Flying to the ground and landing with a thud you rub your backside at the blow.

Mirthlessly chuckling the lack of amusement is clear in the way he composes himself.

Making a dash for it sounds tempting but you may as well let him have his way. There's no action you can take to avoid him reprimanding you. It's your fault for having the gall to make that crude and foul-mouthed comment in the first place.

You gulp comprehending the situation is even worse now since you really only said it for the sole reason of Kirstein's amusement.

"Y/N, I'd like to have a word with you."

Hesitantly you look up at Levi, he has an indecipherable expression on his face, it's been a while since you've last been left in his company alone.

The two of you are stood in his office, his desk is flooded with papers, they're haphazardly scattered all over the place and spikes of worry weirdly make them self present in your belly. This isn't right. He'd never leave his work space in this state.

"Are you okay?" You ask it because you’re sure he isn't.

His shoulders and spine stiffen. "Cut the crap and keep the formalities to yourself." He chides, most definitely defensive in his stance.

Without asking him you shuffle to his desk stacking the papers into organised piles, most of the documents are related to an up and coming expedition and it's all beginning to add up. Even humanities strongest soldier has moments where he cracks.

Then you notice your name on the formation plan but before you're able to make anything out of it Levi snatches it off his desk and away from you stuffing it into his pocket.

Without another sound he observes you cleaning the rest of the mess away but doesn't ask for you to stop. There's no reason for him to.

If you do this maybe he'll go easier on you, yeah that's what your motivation is. That's not exactly the truth, really you're just concerned about whatever has him worked up.

Placing the last document in its rightful place you want to give your mind a moment to recollect itself but Levi doesn't think the same.

He places his arms on either side of the desk, trapping you with no way out. Oddly, there's nothing threatening about him looking down at you this time, the greys and blues of his iris' captivate you.

"Do you enjoy making a mockery of your husband?" The question is whispered. It's unanticipated and the title of husband is uncharacteristic coming out of his mouth.

"It was just a joke." You mumble your answer under your breath.

"Would you have spouted that shit in front of the rest of the unit?"

Mildly shaking your head he then sighs. He’s not angry, he genuinely seems let down.

"Do you prefer him over me?” You swear you hear the faintest hint of self-doubt.

His questions are getting more out of the ordinary by the second and you’re waiting for him to crack a malevolent grin before he ridicules you like he always does.

��Of course I don’t prefer him over you.”

“Prove it.”

Tilting your head up towards him you have no idea what he wants for you to do or say, why does this suddenly even matter to him?

And then you imagine it happen, him digging his hands into your shoulders. Your weight along with his shifting up against the desk making it creak. Your mind details how he would kiss you agitatedly and you flush thinking about how you would feverishly return the favour.

It seems like your imagination predicts the future. He grips your jaw with his hand, his touch isn’t firm and for once it’s quite soft. Relishing in the new experience as he leans in you secure your eyes shut in expectation.

Stroking your cheek with his thumb the warm sensation that courses through your body is rather pleasant. His hands come out to run against your body, pinching the sides of your waist. The motion makes your heart stall for a second. Involuntarily, you find yourself leaning into him.

“This seem like a man who hasn’t felt the touch of a woman before?”

And just like that he leaves you hanging. You flutter your eyes open and there he is. He’s back, the same cynical man, smirk etched onto his features, his body still parallel to yours.

You find yourself enraged at how he's just lead and dragged you on, you should have stuck with your gut feeling and not given into temptation but you know what they say, curiosity killed the cat. It's very obvious who the cat is in this situation.

Brows furrowing you can’t face him ever again after the scalding embarrassment inhabits your abdomen.

"Going to cry, Cadet?" He's pushing all your buttons, eagerly choosing to provoke you.

The frustration you’ve been feeling fills you to the brim and you clamp down on your bottom lip. If you must turn to inflicting harm onto yourself just to muffle the sound of your whimpers you will.

“Did you need to do that?” You choke out your response feeling helpless, still not looking at him.

“Simply gave you a taste of your own medicine.”

Silence.

"Sometimes I wish you killed me back then."

Silver eyes become dark and he visibly flinches at your confession.

Still boxed in-between his arms you attempt to push past but he continues to obstruct the exit. He's not done yet.

"I gave you another chance at life." His blunt one-sided view is about to drive you crazy.

"Within my first day at this unit I had to avoid being attacked by another cadet in the forest if you call that a life I do-"

“Who?”

“Not important."

“If you know what's good for you, you'll spit it out."

For the sole purpose of irking him you heavily shake your head to emphasise your refusal to give in and name the culprit. It's not like you want Reiner to fall into trouble because of you. He hasn't shown any suspicious or out of the ordinary behaviour since then and you worry what Levi is capable of doing when given a reason to hurt someone.

Glancing at him dismissively you try to make your point again. "They haven't done anything since. Therefore, it's of no importance."

Conflicted emotions scurry over his face as he looks at you.

"It's of importance if my wif-" He growls and stops midway. His hands grip onto the desk even harder, knuckles turning white.

Was he about to say, wife?

Levi immediately realizes what he's nearly just said sounds exceedingly questionable. A look of uncertainty flashes over his face and then it seems he loses all regard for self-control. His willpower isn't enough to get him through this situation and he only amplifies.

Encroaching further into the very little space amongst the both of you his tone is icy. "Tell me." He's glowering and for Reiner's wellbeing you decide you should just come out with it now. He'll be in an even more difficult spot if you don't.

"Reiner, it was Reiner." You gasp out the answer, shallow breath ragged. Head turning away to the side you're not particularly sure why you're so shaky and why you feel a tremor flood past you inundating your movement. It may all be a combination of how close he's standing to you and how intoxicatingly strong his aura is.

Or, perhaps it's due to how he nearly referred to you as his wife during his primal outburst of anger.

He turns away. Automatically creating yet another blockade between the two of you.

"You're dismissed."

[chocolate-parfait]

Okay, I just got myself a tumblr account to ask for this Ikémen Vampire scenario, because the world needs this. Can you do one where the MC questions Mozart about his song "Leck mich im Arsch" (Ger. for "Kiss my ass" (lit. Lick me in the ass). I just can't imagine IkéVamp Mozart composing something like this so please be creative and do something funny. The song really exists btw. Real Mozart was a savage.

Started off serious, became trashy insults somewhere in the middle

Mozart being asked about his song “Kiss my ass” - ikevamp scenario (TW; mature language)

Thoughts are in italic

Bold AND italic is just me highlighting something

"Ugh, it hasn't even been a week and Sebastian is already burying me with work!" You mentally whined as you stretched your arms over your head. "Collect the sheets, wash the dishes, polish the shoes and wash the tablecloths..." each chore you listed made one of your fingers go up, and as the count reached ten you let out a deep sigh. You weren't even nowhere to be finished. "...ain't mama raise no weak bitch. Better get done with this before Sebastian yeets me into oblivion", you quietly spoke to yourself before going back to your full time slavery.

A lonely figure in the long corridor, you walked slightly bent forward for both the heaviness of the basket you were carrying and the mental and physical tiredness of your untrained body. As you took a turn at the end of the hallway, the lone sound of your footsteps found a companion. A sweet melody, a familiar one you had heard as a child, drifted through the air and waltzed its way to your ears. About ten meters from you there was the music room; you remembered it from Sebastian's tour of the house, but mostly because of the ever-so-friendly white haired composer that threatened you to stay kilometers away from him unless you wanted to be smacked to outer space. You had every intention of listening to him and avoiding any type of unnecessary contact with the man, but right now an irresistible curiosity pushed your feet to the prohibited door.

Was he composing something? Would he let you listen to one piece of his or play a modern-time song if you begged hard enough? somebody come git her she's dancing like a stripper If getting on your knees and throwing the last ounce of dignity you still had out of the window meant getting to witness Mozart's genius with your own two eyes --an impassable opportunity, too taunting to be ignored-- then someone better had to open up their purse and buy you some protective knee pads, 'cause ya girl was ready to crawl all around the mansion to get that P iano performance.

Inhaling some well needed air to get oxygen to your already malfunctioning brain in preparation of what was to come, you left the heavy basket full of dirty laundry and responsibilities behind and gently pushed the door open while peeking in with your head through the opening. As soon as he felt a pair of eyes on his back, Mozart abruptly stopped his magical fingers to turn to you, face contorted in an annoyed grimace.

Mozart: what.

MC: I- uh- uhm,,,, uhhhh- I... um

"Great job, chicken brain. The hero I absolutely didn't need right now"

Mozart: "I- uh- uhm,,,, uhhhh- I... um"...? I understand 15 languages and troglodyte isn't one of them. If you have nothing to say then leave.

MC: wait I-

Mozart: you didn't even knock. Are you really that impolite or did you grow up in a cave or something?

It hadn't even been 30 seconds and you had already been owned so hard not even a burnt Thanksgiving turkey could compare to this level of roasting, but there was no way in hell you were going to give up just for some edgy frail-looking man spouting some insults at you. You could probably smash him to the ground if you wanted, maybe... actually it would probably end with him snapping your neck like a twig, but at least the will to punch him was there.

You were ready to talk back with a savage comeback of your own, but before your mind could send the input to your mouth, his curt tone cut you off.

Mozart: Staring at people is a normal thing for future people? Makes me pity mankind. Get out.

...as kind as ever, the pianist! Kinda makes you want to kick him in the shins but you kept that thought to yourself.

As you were about to leave, two pair of footsteps got nearer to you from the corridor. Turning your head to the side you saw the clown duo making its way to the room, and you knew they were the ones who could provide you with the perfect chance to either succeed in your intent or bring you to a violent death.

Arthur: Oh my, what's happening in here? Is our wolfie making a move on our lovely MC before I can ask her out on a date myself?

Dazai: Good evening, Toshiko-san! Is something the matter?

And if this was your only opportunity, then you were going to use all your cards from the beginning. Mustering the best puppy eyes you could manage, you turned to the couple, and with a slightly whiny tone that resembled a half plea for help, you said:

MC: Ah, Arthur, Dazai-san! I just wanted to ask Mozart if I could listen to him playing the piano but he did nothing but be mean to me the whole time! I didn't even speak a word and he's already told me to leave twice~

Mozart: Which you didn't. So now I'm telling you a third time, leck mich. (=bug off)

Catching your subtle hint and feeling in the right mood to mess with the other fellow vampire, they decided to fan the flames of his annoyance by bringing in the discussion that one thing they knew he abhorred talking about.

Arthur: "Leck mich"? Why, Wolfie, you surprise me! You really haven't changed from your youth days, haven't you? My dear MC, did you know that the genius pianist here wrote a song called "Leck mich im Arsch"? A song about licking bums!

Dazai: Buttholes!

Arthur: Arseholes!

Dazai: Bungholes!

This was NOT the type of conversation you would've expected to have in a house full of historically important figures of such caliber, and foremost you were so close to bursting into a raging fit of laughter that only the scary aura of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was preventing you to do so. Despite the amusement you were worried the vein on his temple would explode and show you something you did not sign up for.

Mozart: Haven't I already told you not to bring that up?

Dazai: My, what a chilling smile, Wolfie-kun! Keep that up and you'll scare all the ladies away~

MC: pft——— what ladies?

Mozart: What are you laughing about, dumbass

Arthur: Woah, woah, woah! That's not the proper way to speak to a lady, Mozie! Bad wolf, bad!

Mozart: Did you take me for a dog, you four eyed caveman?

The more the snow white haired man was filled with rage, the more the situation escalated into something even more ridiculous , so much that in the midst of it you didn't even mind the recent insult.

But something was nagging you at the back of your mind. Why did someone as much as a clean freak as him write a song about licking ass? Though you realized Arthur probably gave you the literal translation just to be more direct about his bullying, you guessed it still was something pretty vulgar for someone like him. although you had to admit that the gracious idea you had of him crumbled away the second he opened his mouth

MC: I would've never expected someone like you to write such a song...

Mozart: What are you talking about?

MC: Uhm, you know, you're pretty neat, you don't let anyone touch your piano because of their 'filthy hands'... a piece about butts is a bit...

Mozart: I was still young at the time. My humor used to be different from now, people change in the span of 100 years, you know?

Arthur: Sense of humor? I wasn't aware you had one!

Mozart: Ahahah, so very funny, you stupid tratschtante (=gossip aunt)

Dazai: Maa maa (=now, now ; ara ara maa maa), I don't think the song is that out of character. After all, "licking butts" still has the idea of cleaning something, doesn't it?

Everyone: ...

Arthur: ...That was a bit too much

MC: Yeah, it was.

Mozart: Disgusting. This is why I dont like you people

MC: Wait, so can I listen to-

Mozart: Scram. All of you.

[fablesrose]

Of Kings and Shadows XXIII

Description: Y/n, a girl who seems to have found her calling. Being a SHIELD agent is like a dream come true. With a friendship starting to form with the Avengers, she’s the Queen of the world! What could go wrong?

Pairings: Avengers x reader, Loki x reader (eventually)

Notes: It’s a little short for the time it took, sorry!

On Wattpad –> Here

Masterlist

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The mind is a tricky place.

Effortless to become lost in, easy to meddle with, hard to break, difficult to control, and nearly impossible to put back in its place.

The mind requires both precision and respect. Neither can be given as a gift, only learned. Usually, they are developed together along with the ability to penetrate the mind. Wanda was given the ability without the required time for respect. Perhaps deep inside she knew it, that that was why Loki was placed in charge of the mission of Y/n's mind. She was still sharpening her magic's blade to be a steel knife. Loki, on the other hand, was sharper than obsidian.

That's why in the heat of battle, the Avengers were put in charge of keeping the opposing agents at bay and away from Queen and Loki while also defending themselves from attacks. It is well within Loki's abilities to multitask with mind magic and dueling, but this was a special case. Loki hung closer to the back and threw up a shield for good measure. He put minimal attention to the battle around him with occasionally taking out an agent if needed.

The rest of his focus and energy was put into exploring the folds and shadows of what used to be Y/n's mind. The surface was worryingly dark to him, not at all what he imagined the original Y/n's mind to be.

He dug deeper and found it somewhat difficult, every mind is different and has a different 'texture' and consistency, but Y/n's functioned differently than anyone he had ever seen. It was like it was actively trying to keep him out, with half a moment of pushing through sludge, to falling forward suddenly with thin and lightning-fast decisions of battle. It was puzzling, usually only those with mental abilities are able to protect themselves or even sense someone was infiltrating the mind unless the infiltrator specifically makes contact. As far as they knew she didn't have any mental magic, but he pushed through to see what was bouncing around in there. He was able to get far enough to start seeing flashes of assignments and missions that were numbered many times more than they had ever thought.

Some were horrific and brutal. Some were stealth with her blending with the shadows like she was born there. It was fascinating... and almost nauseating. Eventually, he had to refocus himself on what his actual mission was: make contact, try to see how much of the old, the good Y/n is still in here, and find if there are any weaknesses they could use.

He repeated her name over and over to himself to keep him on-mission. As he did so the pattern around him changed as if she was only then made aware of his presence.

A voice spoke to him that sounded only vaguely familiar, 'Y/n is not here.'

Loki realized he must have mistakenly projected his thoughts into telepathy instead of privately. At first, he wondered if he remembered her voice incorrectly since it has been so long since he's heard it, but the dark and almost unnaturally smooth quality told him otherwise. He believed her--partly--he believed that he was not talking to Y/n. 'To whom am I speaking then?'

'I've gone by many names as I'm sure you've seen on some of those files. Around here they just call me Queen. Y/n seems to think that I've evolved and have always been here, she calls me Noxy. You may call me what you like.'

There was a spark of hope at her words, 'So Y/n is here.'

There was a pause, 'She won't be for long. I'm actually surprised that she's lasted this long. Existing anyway. Not surprised at the state she's in.'

That was all it took for Loki to dig deeper into her mind, leaving whatever abomination was controlling Y/n's body to try to find something, anything to stop the rampage and hopefully save the woman he would like to call his friend.

He went farther past the missions, the strategies, and manipulation 101. He was about to give up on trying to find Y/n and start scavenging to find weaknesses when he approached the far reaches of her mind. That's when he began to hear faint traces of music. He followed it to a small corner that didn't reflect the dark sludge around him. It was colorful and light, but he didn't fail to notice the fingers of dark shadows invading the area, causing it to fade and turn a bit grey.

The rhythm of decisions being made now made sense. The brain does not have the ability to truly multitask. Instead, it switches back and forth between tasks quicker than we can register. Her mind wasn't trying to keep him out, her mind was just switching between this Noxy character and Y/n.

The song seemed familiar, but the lyrics being sung hardly made sense.

He tried to reach out to her, calling her name, but nothing seemed to snap her to pay any attention to him. It was just that snippet of a song playing on a loop and scrambled flashes of pictures, memories, all of them incoherent.

Blinded by the light...

revekjsmed up like a dochewekf.

Ansldkjthor rumner in the night!

He would be lying if he said it didn't scare him. Not even his own thoughts were ever this disarranged, and he has been called mad far more than his fair share of times. It became abundantly clear that he wasn't going to get through to her and he began to lose the small spark of hope that he got before.

Loki did the mental equivalent of sitting down with a huff and tried to think of what to do next. This was becoming more difficult than he had hoped. As he sat there he really paid attention to the music since that was the only thing Y/n was giving him.

He must admit that it took longer than it should have for the song to click and that maybe Y/n was trying to tell him something through it. It nearly broke his heart that even when she didn't have all of her pieces put together that she was still trying to give them something to work with. Something to beat her with.

At least, that's what he hoped she was doing. He kinda wanted a deep moment.

Loki snapped back to the battle outside of his mind and smacked his head for all of them being so stupid, including himself, but he wasn't going to say that out loud.

"Stark!" Loki yelled through the comms, throwing himself back into the battle.

"What? What have ya got?" Tony continued to blast at black spears being launched at him and Hydra agents that kept coming and didn't seem to have an end.

Loki flung daggers with deadly accuracy while slicing down any agent that came into his path, "What is the opposite of darkness?"

"Really? You're gonna give me riddles? Light... Light is the opposite of dark."

"And if there is enough light?"

"No darkness at all."

Loki nodded to himself, "Do you think we can get enough light?"

There was a pause while Tony did some calculations, "I don't know, but we can damn well try."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I had that feeling when you're zoned out and someone calls your name but you don't notice until five minutes after the fact? I was so focused on the song... It was so important. When I snapped out of making sure the song kept playing, something was different.

I couldn't put my finger on it--figuratively or literally--what exactly was different, I mean, I'm the only one who could rearrange things in my little corner, so maybe I was just going crazy. More crazy anyway.

I spent a moment puzzling over the strange feeling before I felt her body succumb to waves of exhaustion out of nowhere. I hadn't felt that kind of exhaustion in a long time, but I knew what it was all too well. It reminded me of the lightroom.

I was scared, I hadn't been in the lightroom since Noxy took over, but maybe something changed.

I finally decided to see what was going on in the outside world and I wasn't sure if I was going to like what I saw. I didn't want to see the stark white walls and the electric shocks. I tentatively paid attention to what was going on and a bittersweet feeling overcame me.

Noxy had her hands out and tried to shoot her spears of darkness at the Avengers... and others I didn't recognize. The pitch-black material that made up her weapons became smaller and smaller, not flying as far as they normally would, and some even fizzled away at her fingertips. I could tell that we didn't have the energy to keep the fight going.

The reason why is that everywhere I could see there were lights shining on me. Lights from the building behind me, some sort of aircraft above me had a spotlight trained on me, and every Avenger that was able had some sort of light fixed on me. They weren't perfect. There were shadows that Noxy was pulling energy from, but they were small and the sheer force and brightness of the light coming from Thor's lighting, Tony's repulsors from both of the suits, even Cap had his shield reflecting light at me, it all made it so the shadows weren't enough.

Nevertheless, the light wasn't enough to drop us.

Since she could draw upon the shadows, Noxy pulled out a gun and a whip from her belt.

All at once, I could hear everyone I had ever met, including myself say, "Kinky."

I didn't remember ever seeing it before, let alone using it, training with it. For a moment I felt like Indiana Jones with the bullwhip at her side. I could see it wasn't perfectly smooth and that there were bits and pieces of shiny material woven into it. I instinctively knew that it would be extremely painful to be hit with.

Noxy cracked it easily and began to advance towards the heroes. She only took two steps before there was a sharp prick in the neck. Noxy pulled out what looked to be a horse tranquilizer. Her eyes snapped to the direction it came from to see Clint crouched in a tree, bow slung across his back. He emptied the barrel in one fluid motion and shot a loose salute in our direction, but despite the lightness of it, there wasn't a smile on his face.

I could feel her body begin to shake as it became difficult to stand steady. She raised her gun to shoot at Clint, but her hand was trembling too bad to take aim. Noxy dropped the whip to steady her gun, but her eyes drooped in exhaustion. My already limited range of sight began to shrink even more and then the world became dizzy, I became dizzy? I wasn't sure anymore. The one thing I did know was that as I was falling to the ground it felt like there was a whole new presence in my head. It was soft, hardly noticeable, but before I could figure out what was going on, we blacked out.

[iya5rt]

Kalopsia Project [Bakugo Katsuki x Reader – Tokyo Ghoul AU]

Chapter 7 – Cold Villains and Villainous Colds

Chapter Summary: A creeping cold, an unexpected savior, and yet another day of trouble after trouble.

Kalopsia Project Masterpost

***

“No, no, no – this time I will get it right, I promise!”

“You sure, [Y/N]-chan? You’ve been saying that for the past three days.”

“W-well… I… I’ll try my best today!!”

“Hmm, I’m sure Recovery Girl-san will be pleased to hear that!”

“Huh? Recovery Girl?”

“Oh, yeah – I forgot you probably didn’t know,” Uraraka chuckled, motioning for you to come inside, as the two of you finally finished cleaning the outside tables. Opening time was soon, but you seemed to be ahead with the routine preparation today, so you had a few minutes left to simply chat away.

You both moved to put on the aprons of your standard Yuuei uniforms, and sat on two of the bar stools, as you excitedly awaited Uraraka’s story.

“You see, the old lady whose order you’ve been messing up for the past few days-” The remark made you blush a little but Uraraka only giggled and patted your shoulder. “It’s okay – she said she didn’t mind, remember? Anyway, you know how the CCG gives ghouls nicknames? Well, hers was Recovery Girl!”

You paused, trying to connect the dots in your head. You failed though. That old lady with that name? You’d heard of a handful of ghouls from your parents, but Recovery Girl was an unfamiliar name to you. It didn’t sound all that threatening, so perhaps that was the reason why.

“Yeah! And you know why she was called that?” Midoriya chimed in, emerging from the back room. “Her regenerative abilities were crazy fast! Like, the fastest we’ve ever seen! Of course, that was back in her prime.” He paused to stack a few trays on the counter. “Now she mostly avoids hunting by herself. This is why we help ghouls like her here at Yuuei by providing food!”

“I see… Hey, have you guys been given fancy nicknames by the CCG too?” you perked up, curiously glancing at Midoriya and Uraraka. The two looked at each other, but laughed and shook their heads.

“Nah, we’re pretty careful with not drawing attention to ourselves. A lot of ghouls at Yuuei are. We’re just trying to blend in with society – we don’t wanna have some hunters on our tails all the time.” She briefly paused, and looked around the room, as though to make sure someone wasn’t within earshot. Then she leaned in, lowering her voice to a whisper. “You know who here does have a nickname though? Aizawa-san!”

“He does!?” you exclaimed, but Uraraka motioned for you to keep quiet. You cleared your throat and asked again, this time lowering your voice like she had done. “He does? What is it?” Uraraka grinned.

“Eraser Head! And they called him that because-”

“The people he attacked always seemed to vanish without a trace, almost like they’d been completely “erased” out of existence,” a new voice interrupted, and both of you turned to see Bakugo walking through the front door. He moved to close it and looked at you. “Ya know, you’re not quiet at all. Be grateful Aizawa ain’t around.”

“Ah, sorry,” you mumbled, and, seeing as how the time had passed by pretty quickly, you stood up and went to turn around the front door’s sign, officially signaling the start of the work day. With that, you opened the door and the chilly air that suddenly hit you made you sneeze a few times.

When you turned around, you found all eyes were on you.

“What? The weather’s been all weird lately, I’m fairly certain I’ve caught a cold…” Bakugo cocked an eyebrow.

“You should just take the day off then?” Though you only shrugged.

“I’m fine and I promise not to get anyone else sick. I’ll manage for today. I can always rest tonight and take it easy for the next few days, I guess.” Bakugo didn’t look convinced, though before he could retort anything back, the sound of someone making their way down the stairs caused all eyes to snap in its direction.

He probably knew everyone was staring at him, not to mention the sudden awkward silence that had come along with his arrival, but he seemingly pretended not to notice.

You honestly couldn’t believe you had to go along with this. No one really asked you if you agreed or not but…

The moment Monoma’s eyes briefly glanced at you, you immediately looked away. No way were you going to get caught staring at him. He let out a chuckle.

“What? Is that the warm welcome of Yuuei’s staff? I’m not so sure about this idea anymore.” You could practically hear Bakugo gritting his teeth beside you.

“I never agreed either so here’s what I say – let’s just settle this here and now, huh?” The two took a step towards each other, twisted snarls on their faces. They were just about ready to throw hands.

“You act all high and mighty but a surprise entrance is a cheat, you know? If you wanna beat me, do it fair and square, Bakugo.”

“You wanna go? I still think we should have just killed you in the first place so let me do that real quick, hm? Asshole.”

The two continued arguing for a few more minutes, until the first customers walked in and they were forced to settle for murderous glares instead.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad everyone else is also here this time but… it still doesn’t feel right.

For the remainder of your shift, you remained wary.

He’d gotten the better of you twice, and you weren’t about to let him do so a third time.

***

You mentally cursed the weather and whatever was going on with it these days. Wrapping the jacket tightly around your shivering body, you clutched the small plastic bag of medicine closer.

If you were so insistent on me getting some meds, you should have just come with me, Bakugo-kun, jeez. I am freezing, ugh.

“I hate being sick,” you muttered under your nose, sneezing not long after. You were starting to feel worse and worse by the hour, and at this rate you wouldn’t have been able to get out of bed tomorrow.

I guess I’m pushing myself a bit too much. A lot has happened these past few days, so my body’s probably taking some time to cope. Maybe being around ghouls makes you more prone to colds?

You gasped.

What if every time you get a cold, that’s because you’ve had close contact with a ghoul!? …

You shook your head, chuckling a little.

That’s ridiculous. Seems like the cold’s making me delusional. I promise to take it easy starting tomorrow! I don’t feel like worsening my suffering…

Your thoughts were suddenly interrupted by the sound of whispering, alongside hurried footsteps, coming from somewhere not too far behind you. Upon rounding a corner, you managed to briefly spot the source of it too, and your heart almost stopped.

Great, someone’s following me now? Gosh, how do I keep getting myself in these awful situations!? Okay, okay, calm down – just find a more crowded street to get to Yuuei and you’ll be fine!

I.. hope…

Although, as fate would have it, perhaps you were a tad more screwed than you thought you were. You glanced around, only to realize that there was no way to get to the cafe without passing through some weird dark alleyways from where you stood right now.

Great. If I get myself killed by weird stalkers instead of ghouls, at least that would be a change. Haha, look at me, joking about this stuff…

Your furrowed your brows. Despite playing it as a joke, you were actually scared. It was kind of becoming the norm for you lately, so you weren’t nearly as scared as you had been that first time you’d been attacked by Monoma but… death was still something you feared. You couldn’t die just yet. Or let yourself be attacked by weird creeps following you out of nowhere, for that matter.

You almost screamed when a hand was placed on your shoulder. You could swear the men had been too far away from you to reach you in such a short time, you should have had longer, you would have been fine, you-

“Well, hello there!”

You froze, though the hand on your shoulder ushered you to continue moving forward, forcing you to only gulp as you were lead ahead. He must have noticed how your shoulders tensed up however, and he faked a pout.

“Aw, not happy to see me, hm?” Monoma joked. You weren’t in the mood for jokes though. Or in the mood to see him at all in the first place. Despite his words however, he leaned down and lowered his voice, whispering in your ear. “There are two weird guys following you, you know that?”

You growled quietly and turned to shoot him a glare. Meanwhile, he only looked back with a raised brow. You could swear he was just trying to hide his smirk though. It was almost like he was expecting you to be grateful.

Well, sucks for him.

“Yeah, I know,” you retorted, trying your best to stress how ungrateful and unimpressed you were. “As a matter of fact, I was trying to avoid them.” You made an attempt to shake him off. “Now would you mind getting your hands off me!?”

Monoma shrugged but complied anyway. Even so, it’s not like you could have just run off either. He would easily catch up to you, not to mention that you’d have to deal with three people on your trail in that case. You did have a slight suspicion as to why he was acting the way he was though.

“What, you’re just keeping your prey to yourself then…?” you frowned, turning to look anywhere but him. This time, Monoma remained quiet for a few seconds. You almost had a heart attack, thinking that he was mad now. A single chuckle followed, then he leaned in closer. Only now did you notice the two men were walking dangerously close to the both of you.

“Are you crazy? If that Bakugo guy found out that something happened to you while I was nearby, he might just kill me for real this time.” When the two of you were forced to a stop while waiting at a red light, Monoma turned to look back. Not long after, you heard hurried footsteps rushing away.

Did… did he chase them off?

“If they see you’re with another ghoul, they probably won’t attack you.” Your eyes widened.

“Ghoul? How would they know?” Monoma laughed.

“Aw, come on – I’ll have you know, I’m quite famous around here. This was my feeding ground before I moved to the Second Ward. Anyway.” The light turned green and you crossed the street. Monoma had let go of your shoulder, though he was still walking practically beside you and casting you frequent glances to make sure you wouldn’t run. “Don’t flatter yourself like that – I just don’t feel like dying quite yet, so we’re heading straight for Yuuei. You can thank me later.” That annoying smirk was back on his face. You scoffed.

“As if.”

The remainder of your walk to Yuuei, however short it may have been, was… awkward. To put it mildly. And who could blame you – getting along with the one who almost murdered you twice in the span of a single week wasn’t exactly possible. You still couldn’t quite place his motives for chasing away the two men from earlier, though you would think twice before easily believing him again. Not after what happened last time anyway.

Even so, he did get me out of potential trouble… However selfish his motivations may have been.

You glanced at Monoma, trying to discern what his reasons were. Before you could look away though, he caught your stare and raised an eyebrow, at which you promptly pouted and looked away.

Walking into Yuuei was not something you were exactly looking forward to either. Especially if Monoma planned to come in with you side by side.

And true enough, your worries turned out to be quite reasonable. Lunch break was going to end soon (you cursed your weird stalkers for slowing you down), and upon opening the door, all eyes in the cafe turned to stare at you. Most took a second to process everything and remained still. You didn’t dare look up to see their reactions. One person however, didn’t even give you time to explain.

In the blink of an eye, he had rushed past you and was gripping Monoma’s collar.

“Oi, you really have a death wish, huh!? The hell were you doing!? Answer me, asshole!!” Bakugo growled, not actually giving Monoma any time to answer.

See, normally you would have rushed inside the cafe and let him handle this. It’s not like you felt sorry for Monoma. But…

Damn it, I’m becoming such a softie…

You cleared your throat and a pair of crimson eyes suddenly looked at you. At least, you assumed they did, since the profanities spilling from Bakugo’s mouth also stopped, though you yourself were looking somewhere off to the side.

“Bakugo-kun, it’s… it’s okay… I- He, um...” You glanced at Monoma, then turned to look at Bakugo, whose eyes were wide and trained on you. “He, uh, kinda helped me? I-I think?” The ash blond stood frozen for a moment, then took to frantically looking back and forth between you and Monoma.

“He did!? You sure!?” he raised his brows. You slowly nodded, first at Bakugo, then an Monoma (this was the best expression of gratitude he was getting from you). Seems like it wasn’t enough for him though, as you watched him stick his tongue out at Bakugo, who in turn pushed him, making him hit his back in the door.

Surprisingly enough however, even as Monoma was busy grunting from the small pain and rubbing at his back, Bakugo stepped back and drove a hand through his hair. You took that as your cue and walked to the counter, finally dropping the bag of medicine and digging through it to find the first vitamins you were taking for the day.

After you fetched a glass of water and swallowed them, Bakugo leaned back on the counter beside you, shooting you a curious look, at which you only shrugged.

“Don’t ask me,” you said, clearly noticing all the questions on his face, though he refused to speak them out loud. “I was just coming back and some weird guys started following me. He showed up out of nowhere, saying you would get mad if I got hurt? I’m sorry, I’m sure that’s probably all too much.”

“You bet it is.” He leaned his head even further back, staring at the ceiling lost in thought for a bit. “Guess we gotta make sure you’re not going out on your own until we figure out what’s up with those stalkers of yours, huh?”

“They’re probably just some random creeps from the streets, don’t worry about it. I’ll be more careful from now on anyway.” The teasing thought of Bakugo being worried about you crossed your mind, though, noticing you going to change into your uniform again, he stopped you, speaking up before you could even bring it up.

“You’re not gonna eat something? It’s your lunch break, you know?”

You shook your head and sighed, frowning.

“This stupid cold seems to have killed my appetite too.” With that, Bakugo watched you with furrowed brows, as you disappeared upstairs.

There was a weird sinking sensation in his stomach. Something was wrong. Something had been wrong for a while now. Yet he had no idea what was causing him such worry.

Too bad he was going to find out, whether he liked it or not.

***

The day had been pretty slow, perhaps the slowest you’d experienced in your short time working at Yuuei. There were barely any customers, yet most of the staff was there. You mentally blamed it on the weather, convincing yourself that you weren’t the only fool who got sick at such a weird time. Then again, maybe people just had better things to do.

You know who apparently didn’t have better things to do though? Kirishima, Ashido, Kaminari, and Sero. A mere half an hour or so after your “lunch break” (which, let’s be real, had been anything but a break, not to mention that you didn’t even have lunch during it), the four had walked in with wide smiles and taken the same table they’d chosen when you’d first encountered them a few days prior. The inside of the cafe was empty, so it seemed like that was just their preferred place.

You waved them hello and went to fetch their drinks. Much like Midoriya, you already had them memorized. With one last look around the place, you decided you weren’t needed anymore and sat beside the four.

That’s exactly what I need right now. I feel like crap, so hopefully this will distract me enough.

You spent the next few minutes catching up on everything that had happened over the past few days, and, at long last, began making plans to meet up soon. Ashido had mentioned how cool their arcade night had been (of course not neglecting to say how she had been the sharpest shooter out of the bunch, only for Kirishima to lean in and whisper that she had actually been the worst at it), and the thought of going out with them resurfaced in your mind. Even though you had to insist on putting it off a bit, so your cold could pass by then, you were already trying to figure out where you wanted to go.

“[F/N/-san, the hot cocoa is ready!” Midoriya called out, quickly disappearing into the back room yet again.

“Oh, excuse me then, I’m gonna have to bring that over real quick,” you smiled, and walked over to the counter, raising a brow at Bakugo, who seemed to be frowning an awful lot tonight.

Waving a hand in front of his eyes, you called out.

“Hey, you okay? You look more grumpy than usual,” a small smirk rose to your lips. Bakugo’s frown deepened even further and he waved you off.

“It’s nothing, go back to the loud dumbasses.” Your smirk fell in concern. Something wasn’t right with Bakugo, but you knew you had no right to pry. With a sigh, you turned your back to him.

“If you say so. But,” you turned to give him one final look. “If there’s something wrong, please don’t hesitate to tell someone, okay?” He mumbled a small “Whatever”, as you took your first few steps towards the table.

A loud crash came next. Accompanied by the sound of breaking glass.

In the blink of an eye, your vision went pitch black. Your knees gave out a mere moment after and you fell to the floor.

You were vaguely aware of the frantic cries that suddenly seemed to come from everywhere around you. Though even those went quiet in another second or two.

Or so it sounded like to you. After that, you lost consciousness.

***

[CLASSIFIED INFORMATION]

Protocol K78152112

Subject #35

Real Name: Bubaigawara Jin

Background: Volunteered as a subject; Left an orphan after parents were killed by ghouls.

Results: Subject suffered almost unbearable headaches; Personality seems to have been affected – borderline bipolar.

Full sync with the kakuhou was achieved in a few hours. Subject lived and showed no further signs of deterioration.

(scribbled in pen) Two in a row? We’re on a roll this months, aren’t we? This one had severe mental damage, so perhaps we should try and avoid that in the future.

***

Author’s Note: An early update today because I have other things that need to get done during my usual update time! Though I doubt anyone’s going to complain, haha!

Hmm, to those who guessed Monoma was going to join Yuuei – you were right! Aizawa’s much softer than he’d like to think, so they decided to give him another chance! Hope you’re excited to see where this is going to go!

And it’s official now – the real plot begins! I can’t wait, aaah!! Anyway, the Classified Information files are becoming very easy to guess, though a lot of you got last week’s correct too! Thank you guys so, so much for reading! Your support on this story means the world to me, please drop a comment with more predictions or just shocked gasps (I had to make up for the lack of a cliffhanger from last week, after all), I’d really appreciate it! I love you all so much and I’ll see you all next Wednesday! Bye~

(Psst, @afuckingunicornn  @creativedogs  @chims-kookies  - you know the drill by now - thank you for the support and here is the next part!)

[franstastic-ideas]

Beyond a Shadow of a Doubt

Wraithtale AU - Sans and Gaster haven’t seen eye-to-eye for a while now; even small conversations between the two can feel like an uphill battle. When the existence of shadow monsters is revealed to the people of Ebott Town, Gaster forbids Sans to make any contact with them. To spite him, Sans decides that he’s going to become besties with a monster girl – Frisk. He probably could have handled his introduction better, though. Now she thinks you’re a creeper, Sans.

Word Count: 20,600

Warnings: Family drama, some mild body horror, repeating themes of poor self-worth and esteem, and one minor curse that's repeated twice.

It's been fine weather yesterday and today, so we watched the clouds.

It's weather that makes you lazy, and slowly closes your eyes.

It seems it's hard to remember "that" so easily now,

As we've been getting older ever since...

 ~~~~~~~~~~

 "Sans." A familiar stern-sounding voice said from behind him. "Where do you think you're going?"

"well crap…" Sans thought.

Things had not gone according to plan. If they had, he would have been out of the house and far away from the old man before he even knew he had left. But no, Gaster just had to be on top of his game today. Why hadn't he recalled that today was Gaster's day off? Now he remembered: it was because his father didn't bother telling him anything anymore, unless it was about another one of Sans's screw-ups. It seemed like he couldn't do anything right anymore in his father's eyes.

Home was supposed to be where the heart is, the one place in the world where you felt most comfortable and safe. But lately, this place didn't feel like home anymore to Sans.

Sans wanted to retort that it was none of his business, but he was reminded of his younger brother and his sincere and earnest wish for the two of them to get along again, so he held himself back, albeit begrudgingly.

He would try to make this work, if only for him.

"c'mon, sans. do it for paps…" He mentally urged himself to be civil.

"well hiya, pops! didn't see ya when i came through. sure is some great weather that we're having this morning!"

"ok, that sounded fake." Sans could have gagged at his clearly faux overly cheery tone; that didn't sound like him at all.

"Sans, it's eleven thirty. It's almost noon."

"but we're still in the a.m. hours, and if we were at grillby's right now he'd still be serving breakfast, so it's still morning in my books."

Now that sounded more like himself.

"Okay then, let's agree to disagree. Anyhow, you're avoiding my question and I want an answer: where are you going, Sans?"

"i was going outside."

"Yes, anyone with two brain cells could see that!" Gaster was losing his patience. "Allow me to rephrase my previous question – where are you going outside?"

"i dunno. i might go see alph and 'dyne, bro and i might work some jobs around town, i might go to grillby's for lunch…" Sans prattled off everything he thought Gaster wanted to hear and then finished it off with something he knew he didn't want to hear. "pretty much anywhere that isn't here."

Sans had to stop himself from stomping as he made his way towards the front door. When he reached for the doorknob, his father's voice halted him once more.

"…You really hate me that much, don't you?"

"i didn't say that. you know i didn't say anything like that, so quit trying to guilt trip me."

It had taken every ounce of Sans's willpower not to raise his voice; he had already failed Papyrus's request for them to be civil towards each other, and it made him feel ashamed even though his brother wasn't here to witness their latest spat. But he and Gaster had been at each other's throats even more than usual for the past few days and Sans needed to get out and clear his head before he said or did something he would regret, and Gaster himself was making this harder to do than necessary.

He didn't hate his father, but Sans didn't think he could ever love him as he once had.

"You're going out wearing that?" Gaster pointed at his blue hoodie.

"yeah, i am. i always do, don't i?"

"It's 90 degrees fahrenheit. You could suffer from heat stroke wearing that. Take it off."

"i'll drink water." Sans all but growled before swinging the door open and shutting it behind him with a slam.

Once he was out of the house and far enough away, he took a shuddering breath. He had grown so furious that if he had stayed even a second longer, he was sure he would have lost his temper. Nothing looked right to Sans when he was angry – colors and shapes blended together and blurred. He couldn't even speak coherently when his temper reached a certain point.

He hated feeling like this – he felt like some sort of wild animal. No, something that went beyond man or beast.

He remembered the breathing excercises Toriel had taught him.

In. One… Two… Three…

Out. Exhale. Slowly.

Repeat.

He did so until he felt the negative emotions leave his body enough to regain his thoughts, silently sending thanks to Toriel for her assistance even when she couldn't be there. He wouldn't have forgiven himself if someone had come across him and he snapped at them while in that state.

Sans looked down at the sleeves of his hoodie and he couldn't deny that it did feel too warm at times to wear it, especially now since it was summer. Before, he had been reluctant to part with it simply because it was his favorite article of clothing. But now… not wearing it wasn't an option. And Gaster knew that. And yet he had spoken as if he were exasperated with him wearing it constantly.

"no, I'm not taking it off, because i can't! and i wouldn't have to wear it all the time if it weren't for you!" He had wanted to scream.

But deep in his heart, he knew he shouldn't and couldn't place the blame on Gaster. As angry and hurt as he was with him, as much as their relationship had deteriorated, he couldn't blame his father for it.

It was an accident.

And it had been four months since the accident, but sometimes Sans could still feel the wounds inflicted upon him with the same intensity of pain as the day he received them.

 ~~~~~~~~~~

After calming down considerably, Sans had decided to go to Grillby's for lunch after all. He would probably do everything on the list of things he gave Gaster before he left, but there was also something he planned to do that he didn't mention – Gaster would blow his top if he discovered Sans's newest pasttime.

"Hey… look at that guy over there." Sans heard someone whisper not so discreetly behind him – an out of towner, most likely a tourist that dropped in Grillby's as a rest stop before continuing on their merry way, probably to the big public beach a few towns over.

"You mean the one wearing the coat in this weather?"

"Yeah, that one. He ordered, like, three burgers when he clearly doesn't need them. I mean, just look at him! What a fatass."

Sans flinched in his seat, but he chose to ignore them and continue eating.

His burger didn't taste as good as it did before…

"Hey, I think he heard you."

"Do you think I care? I'm just telling the truth. He can't get mad over that."

"Excuse me, ladies." A low, smooth masculine voice interjected – Grillby, the restaurant's owner and one of Sans's longtime friends, had chosen to leave his position behind the counter and intervene.

"Y-Yes?" The first woman stuttered, both out of being caught badmouthing another customer and out of shock from seeing Grillby's handsome face up close – some citizens of the town and smitten passerbys still wondered to this day why he settled on becoming a cook for his profession and not a male model instead.

"I do not condone such behavior within the walls of my establishment, nor outside them if I can help it." His tone was polite, yet firm. "If you cannot act like civilized well-mannered individuals, then please leave the premises and never return."

The lady seemed offended and her company embarrassed, trying to make herself look small in the booth where they were seated. The first woman dug into her purse and slammed some money onto the table then grabbed her friend roughly by the arm and dragged her out the door, muttering a colorful string of curses under her breath that Sans was surprised he hadn't called her out for.

"aw, grillbz, ya didn't have to do that."

"They were being rude. It's restaurant protocol to toss out discourteous and troublesome customers. And… they were speaking terribly about my friend."

"you can't throw out everybody that calls me a fatass, grillbz. it's bad for business."

"Language. And perhaps not, but I can certainly try." Grillby ran a hand through his shoulder length hair, the red and orange waves of locks almost resembling the flickering of flames when in motion. "And I don't care about business when it was none of theirs to be making unwarranted comments on others' appearances, in this case towards you. That's harrassment, Sans, and I don't know why or how you tolerate such actions on a regular basis."

"eh, you get used to it after a while of hearing it so much."

"But you shouldn't have to." Grillby sighed, knowing that this conversation was leading to nowhere, as per usual whenever they entered this subject matter.

Sans received large portions of unwarranted gossip, especially since he returned from college with no degree and refused to speak of why he was back early, deflecting any and all questions asked about the issue. Sans had left the town and was supposed to have majored in the field of science like his father, but he, like many others in Ebott Town that aimed for higher things, ended up coming back. Grillby was one of them as well – he had left town for culinary school, but he wasn't gone long before he set up his restaurant here. Whenever someone left Ebott supposedly for good only to come back, that person became the center of gossip for a while.

But aside from the rumors circulating around him about his sudden departure from college, Sans usually heard insulting remarks about his body or less than positive remarks on his mismatched eyes. Sans wasn't obese or even fat, but he could definitely be considered chubby. Even so, he was nowhere near as lazy as most thought him to be – he could run fast enough to keep up with more thin-bodied friends, and a great deal of what others thought was fat was in fact muscle that came from years of wrestling with Undyne. You don't get to play rough with Undyne like he had and not get some muscle mass out of it.

Then there was his bone structure – he had naturally thick bones. He had first found this incredibly odd and didn't believe Gaster or Toriel when he was told this until the latter had Sans take an x-ray and showed it to him. It seemed so unlikely to him because Gaster wasn't built like him, nor was Papyrus, and from the few dusty old pictures he could find of his mother, she wasn't thick bodied either. When he compared himself to them, he looked like an outsider, nothing like them at all aside from skin color and perhaps his eyes; one of them, anyway.

"i guess every family's got to have a member that's ugly as sin. might as well have been me."

If it had to be himself or Papyrus that was burdened with an undesirable appearance, he would choose himself every time. Papyrus was blessed with all their father's good looks, and Sans was thankful for that. He would never have to deal with what Sans did so often.

That wasn't to say that Sans always rolled over and took the verbal abuse. Definitely not; there were times when his patience was finally pushed to the limit and the beast within was unleashed. The terrified and shocked screaming of those who brought forth this reaction from him was priceless, their expressions clearly showing that they didn't expect him to be capable of running, especially not at such a remarkable speed, and towards them with fists flying.

It was especially bad for the unlucky souls that provoked his wrath when Undyne was also in the vicinity. She would drop everything she was currently doing and not ask any questions at all before happily joining in on the pummeling. The fiery redhead didn't need to ask anything – if Sans was beating the living snot out of somebody, then they definitely deserved it.

If Alphys was also there, she would record the entire thing and then edit soundtracks from shounen action anime over the scene to show it to them later. Mettaton had wanted to upload the videos she collected onto the internet, the fame monster, but Sans immediately denied him the right to do so despite his whining and begging.

Even so, sometimes during the ensuing chaos, if he was also present, Mettaton liked to play announcer, commenting on the big ball of violence that was unfolding around him with increasing enthusiasm.

With friends like Sans had, Grillby wondered why anybody bothered trying to bully Sans anymore. He had seen the compilation video Alphys had sent him – Sans by himself could be an absolute beast when pushed far enough, but Undyne too? And the additional humiliation of Mettaton's added commentery along with Alphys recording and holding cinematic proof of the harasser's resulting beatdown? Someone would have to be an idiot to pick on Sans at this point, and unfortunately, there were still times where he would be surrounded by idiots.

Poor Papyrus – he would always try to put an end to the fighting if he happened to witness or catch wind of it. He disapproved of some of his friends' eagerness to start throwing punches and kicks, believing that violence wasn't the answer. He tried to take the adult approach and pull everyone aside to speak with and scold them on their behavior like the mom friend he was. Of course, the ones who evoked Sans's wrath in the first place weren't the least bit sorry for what they had done; sorry for getting thoroughly thrashed maybe, but not for their continuous unkind remarks that led to the situation in the first place.

Sans and Alphys could be guilted somewhat easily, but Undyne and Mettaton were different. Sans didn't like the disgusting feeling that washed over him once the built-up aggression had faded and his desire for instant karmic retribution inflicted on those who had agonized him had been satisified, and Alphys simply didn't like the idea of Papyrus being upset with her for any reason ever. Undyne, however, would hold firm to her actions, believing that anyone who was subject to the combined forces of her's and Sans's dukes most certainly had it coming. And Mettaton was an enabler when it came to creating drama - he actively encouraged it if said action would bring about a situation or story that he found spicy.

Grillby felt sympathetic towards Papyrus, he really did.

As much as he loved Sans as a friend, he had to admit, out of the whole lot, Papyrus was almost always the only sane man, and that was saying something.

But he also couldn't lie and say that seeing Sans stand up for himself wasn't satisfying, if not incredibly alarming and heavy on brutality.

Sans wasn't a violent person in the slightest normally, but sometimes, a person can only be pushed for so long and too far before they've had enough, he thought…

Grillby studied Sans's face carefully for a few moments, causing the latter to eventually take notice.

"…what? have i got ketchup on my face?"

"No. I was only wondering… it may be none of my business, though I am concerned, but… did you and Dr. Gaster have another falling out this morning?"

"gee, grillbz. now that ain't fair." He shook his head, turning away from him. "ya read me like a book. …how could ya tell?"

"You seem troubled. Your eyebrows were knitted together almost the entire time since you walked in and your posture is tense." He answered, his gaze softening. "Do you need to stay at my place for a while until things settle?"

"nah, i appreciate the gesture, grillbz, but it's fine, really."

"Then would you like some company and perhaps we could discuss the matter? I can go on break and we could talk-"

"nah, nah, you don't gotta do that. 'm ok, don't worry. 'specially not over me." Sans stood up and began pushing him towards the kitchen. "now go on, grillby; you gotta get back to work and i told tori pap and i'd help paint her roof. off ya go, now."

"Sans!"

"bye, grillbz! see ya later! money's on the counter!" He shoved his friend into the kitchen then shut the door, breathing a heavy sigh.

This wasn't the first time Grillby had offered to open up his home to Sans, and sometimes he took him up on it when things in the Gaster household were especially strained, but Sans didn't want to trouble his friend and his own household when it wasn't necessary. There were occasions where it truly had been best for both himself and Gaster's mental wellbeing for the two to distance themselves from one another, but despite his minor meltdown earlier, this morning had not been one of those times of urgency.

Grillby's younger sister Celosia was also in middle school, and that was a busy time for a kid her age. He always felt guilty for intruding into their home during the nights where she had school the next day and probably had homework that was difficult to concentrate on with his presence invading her personal space. Now that it was summer, she might want to invite over some of her friends for the evening or have a sleepover, and Celosia couldn't do that with total peace of mind when Sans was in the room next door having an emotional breakdown and unpacking it all on her big brother.

So it was for the best that he not drag his friend into his personal problems anymore.

 ~~~~~~~~~~

"Now Sans, you should be more careful climbing up those steps!" He heard Toriel warn him from below.

Papyrus had already perched himself up on the roof, helping steady the ladder from up there while Toriel held it from the bottom. Even so, both were chronic worriers and were afraid of him slipping and falling.

"i got it, no need to panic. see, 'm already over halfway there- woah!" As soon as those words left his mouth, he nearly missed a step and teetered backwards, the ladder beginning to wobble slightly.

"Sans!" Both yelled in panic, their grip on the ladder tightening.

"'m fine! probably shouldn't have spoke so soon. better wait 'til i've made it up all the way to start bragging."

"You can still fall from up there if you aren't careful, young man." Toriel reminded him with a cross glare before letting out a fretful sigh. "I'm beginning to regret this. One or both of you could get killed."

"don't sweat it, tori. we've climbed bigger heights than this, haven't we paps?"

"YES, THAT IS TRUE, BUT LET'S NOT TOSS ASIDE OUR OWN WELL BEINGS FOR THE THRILL OF THE CLIMB. AND LET US NOT FORGET THAT THIS IS A VERTICAL ASCENSION AND NOT A GRADUALLY RISING HORIZONTAL ONE!"

"I assume the two of you are speaking of climbing Mount Ebott." Toriel said, turning a glance towards the near impossibly tall snowcapped mountain that loomed over them, the town's namesake and centerpiece. "While climbing up a ladder is different than climbing up a mountain path by a wide margin, both still have their dangers."

Once Sans was close enough for him to reach, Papyrus grabbed him under the arms and hoisted him up onto the roof with little to no effort – his brother was so strong and muscular, it was no wonder the town's kids thought he was great and wanted to be like him when they grew up.

He couldn't blame them at all – Papyrus was just the coolest.

Once he was safely up on the roof, seated next to his brother, he reached for a brush and can of paint and both began to work. Over half of the surface was already painted green and the unpainted sections purple. Toriel and Asgore were going to finish the job themselves, but Asgore was called into the town office unexpectedly for reasons she was sure to hear about later. He didn't want her to finish painting it alone, fearing what should happen if she were to stumble up there by herself, so she called in the brothers for help.

Papyrus was accepting offers for odd jobs around town until he found what he wanted to do in life, and now that Sans wasn't in college anymore, he had to make money for himself somehow. Gaster earned a good income, but Papyrus had wanted to start providing for himself though they lived under the same roof. And Sans wasn't going to allow himself to depend on his father for anything anymore since the accident, so he began to pitch in and pay the bills as well, though less out of a desire to prove himself a mature and responsible adult and more as a gesture to spite the old man.

It was a surprisingly effective countermove on Sans's part – he felt that Gaster inwardly resented him for getting kicked out of college and therefore barring himself from a well-paying job. By adding his own earnings into the house's collective funds, he was effectively telling his father without words that he could indeed support himself just fine without relying on his financial aid, as it was originally Gaster's idea to push Sans towards the college path when he first entered his junior year of high school.

There were days where Sans was actually happy to have gotten expelled, but mostly, he wished he hadn't, even if it was Gaster's desire for him to get a degree and eventually join him in his scientific endeavors. Sans had once loved science and taking part in the experiments he did with his father, but now invention and formulas only brought a bitter taste to his mouth when it once had brought joy.

That's why Sans so often grew so unmeasurably upset with him – despite all that's happened, his father still dropped everything else in his life and ran to science with open arms, even though it ironically costed Sans his college degree, his mental health, their previous family dynamic, and even Sans's entire future.

It wasn't the accident itself that hurt Sans to this day – it was Gaster's reaction to it.

Following this was when Sans began to spend so much time away from the house. If Gaster wanted to spend all his time with his work, then that's exactly what Sans would give him. Gaster had already made his choice, now he'd have to live with it, Sans thought.

The worst part about losing his opportunity for earning the college degree though was that now Sans had nothing to show for himself when people insulted him. Before, where there was a person that shamed him for his appearance, another would fearfully whisper that he was the son of the famed scientist Gaster and he was sure to follow in his footsteps, then the offending person would respectfully back off. During those times, he had felt so proud to be his son.

But now he was just Gaster's failure drop-out son.

Just another comeback kid for the entire town to talk about behind his back.

"the only reason the both of you are so bent out of shape over me going up a ladder is because i'm so fat you think i'm gonna break it."

His inner self-loathing was slipping out through his speech, he realized too late. He told Grillby before he was used to it, but he guessed now that what the woman at the bar had said affected him more than he previously thought. You could only hear something negative about you said to your face for so long before beginning to believe it yourself, even when you knew it wasn't true. And though he was normally easygoing, even Sans wasn't immune to bearing issues of self-esteem.

And Toriel wasn't about to stand for it.

"Sans, we've been over this – you're not fat, you're just-"

"big-boned. i know, i get it." He replied, his response coming off as more snippy than he intended it to and his brush strokes consequently more messy with his soured attitude, which he quickly tried to ammend.

He had been shown his own x-rays plenty of times to know that what she was saying was the truth, but it actually only made him feel worse. Losing weight was something he could do – changing his entire bone structure wasn't.

"Has someone said something to you recently about this?" She inquired, arms crossed over her chest and eyes narrowing as she studied him as closely as possible from where she was standing.

Sans could deny all he wanted, but Toriel's suspicions were already confirmed without him saying a word. There was no use in smudging the facts or concealing anything from her when she was like this – Ultimate Mega Mom Mode, Undyne called it. Toriel was Asriel's mother, but she was also a mother to everyone that knew her. She filled that maternal role that was absent from his and Papyrus's home nearly since they first moved here as children.

And when one of Mama Toriel's children were mistreated, she wanted to know the details first, the who then, and the why later.

Sans murmured something, but it was lost on the wind.

"What was that dear? I didn't quite catch that?" She asked with a heavy frown and a lowered brow.

"…a lady at grillby's called me 'fatass'."

"who was she?" She immediately questioned.

"an out of towner. she's long gone by now. 'sides, grillby ran her off."

"That Grillby is a good boy. He hasn't let his sudden popularity change his core values in the slightest." She smiled, apparently happy with his answer.

Before graduating high school, Grillby had been bullied for having an appearance that was considered 'nerdy'. He was required to wear glasses, and the large round frames he wore then didn't flatter his facial structure. Not only that, but the way he dressed, the way he spoke just screamed 'nerd' to his tormentors. But when he came back to Ebott Town, everyone that knew him, including the ones who had so often went out of their way to make his days miserable, had discovered that he had changed during his absence.

Grillby is now regarded as a chick-magnet, and though he has since forgiven those that used to agonize him, inside, he hasn't, and never will forget what they had done to shatter his self-confidence in the past.

He had graduated when Sans entered his sophmore year, and though the former had changed a great deal physically since he left town, Sans had internally felt a sense of relief when he learned his friend remained the same on the inside upon returning.

"yeah, grillbz is a great guy." Sans readily agreed.

"WAIT A MINUTE – YOU ATE AT GRILLBY'S?" Before he could answer, Papyrus continued. "THEN YOU DIDN'T EAT THE BREAKFAST I MADE FOR YOU THIS MORNING?!"

"no, i didn't. 'm sorry i didn't when you went to the trouble to make it. i just… didn't have time to."

Papyrus always woke up at six 'o clock in the morning, made breakfast for himself, Sans and their father, then once he was finished, he went out for a morning jog that lasted for at least an hour to start off his day. Papyrus was the designated cook of the household, making sure that everyone was fed. They always ate whatever Papyrus served them, but they never ate meals together at the table anymore, always separately.

Sans usually took his breakfast with him if he couldn't eat it in serenity at home, but he had ran into Gaster before he could grab his plate and the ensuing confrontation had made him forget it.

"It's wonderful that someone stands up for you when you won't for yourself." Toriel's voice brought them both back on topic, thankfully – otherwise Sans would have had to explain to his brother just why he didn't have time to eat his lovingly crafted breakfast, and he wasn't looking forward to it.

"tori, it doesn't bother me."

"EVEN IF IT DOESN'T, SANS, IT'S STILL WRONG! HAD THAT LADY NOT LEFT EBOTT AS QUICKLY AS SHE HAD, I WOULD HAVE BEEN FORCED TO SPEAK WITH HER ON THE CONSEQUENCES OF EXHIBITING SUCH POOR AND DISRESPECTFUL MANNERS IN A RELAXED PUBLIC SETTING, GRILLBY OR NO GRILLBY."

"Papyrus is absolutely right, dear. I'm afraid your feelings towards such inexcusable behavior doesn't matter – if you heard the exact same thing happened to your brother or even me, even though either of us said we wouldn't let what was said bother us, how would you feel?"

"i'd still be furious."

"So why should it be any different for us when concerning you?" He then peered over the edge of the roof to find her smiling sweetly at him.

Sans wanted to argue that he was a different case compared to them, but they would only argue and try to make him see otherwise.

So he decided changing the subject entirely and steering the attention away from himself was the best course of action to take.

"so, green, huh?" He asked after a lengthy pause, looking at the paint.

Toriel knew he was trying to create a diversion, but she allowed him peace and answered his question.

"Yes. When Asgore and I married and bought this house, he said he wanted the roof to be my favorite color, so it was painted purple. Now, so many years later, the old paint was chipping away and fading, so the two of us decided it should be painted Asriel's favorite color – green."

"is asriel happy to be out of school for the summer?"

"He's so overjoyed he barely knows what to do with himself or all the free time he has on his hands now. He's out with his friends for the afternoon; Grillby's sister Celosia and… oh, that blonde boy with the spiked hairstyle. I always forget his name and it makes me feel so ashamed because he's Asriel's friend and he's been invited over here so many times that I should know! Oh, but that hair of his… Asriel has been wanting his own cut like that and I've been trying to dissuade him from it. If that's what he really wants, I won't try to stop him anymore, but I don't know if Asriel really wants that specific style or if he's trying to follow some sort of trend."

"if you're wanting to know about fashion trends, i'm the last person you need to be asking." Sans laughed more to himself. "i just roll out of bed like this – if it's stuff about clothes or hair that's popular, it's matt you want to talk to, or, well, mettaton. that's what he's going by now since he got in over his head with that band he started up."

"Didn't you tell me once young Matthew, or rather Mettaton, renamed himself after an angel?" Sans and Papyrus both gave positive confirmations to her question. "But wouldn't that be 'Metatron' instead?"

"yeah. he read it wrong." Sans snickered. "so now he's stuck with a typo for a name."

"WELL, I STILL THINK IT SOUNDS COOL! IT JUST BREATHES STARDOM, JUST LIKE HE SAID!" Papyrus huffed, sending his brother a pointed glare, to which he childishly stuck his tongue out at him.

Papyrus then flicked his brush at him, splattering green flecks of paint on his face. Sans was about to wipe it off on his sleeve, but before he could, a white handkerchief was tossed in his direction. His brother was always prepared – the definite mom that oversaw their group of friends when Toriel couldn't.

"thanks, bro."

"IT WAS NOTHING. YOU WEAR THAT HOODIE SO MUCH THAT, IF IT GOT PAINT ON IT, YOU PROBABLY STILL WOULDN'T WASH IT UNTIL I MADE YOU."

"according to alphys, the main character of any story has to have some kind of wardrobe or piece of clothing that identifies them – this hoodie is mine, just like yours is your red scarf."

"WELL, I SUPPOSE YOU'RE RIGHT…" He hesitantly agreed, toying with the somewhat tattered ends of his scarf. He then gasped. "WAIT – YOU THINK THAT I COULD BE A MAIN CHARACTER? ME?!"

"of course, bro. who wouldn't want to watch a show where you were the star?"

"AWW, SANS! THAT'S THE SWEETEST THING YOU'VE SAID ALL WEEK! GET OVER HERE." Deciding that Sans was too slow, Papyrus shuffled over on his knees, throwing his arms around him and pulling him into a tight hug.

Sans happily returned the gesture – he's had an awful day so far, but a hug from his bro always made a horrible day better.

Papyrus suddenly recoiled and stuck out his tongue with a loud 'bleh'. "EW! YOU SMELL LIKE GRILLBY'S! I'VE CHANGED MY MIND - GET AWAY! GET AWAY!"

"aw, come on, bro. don't be like that." Sans grinned widely, holding out his arms and shuffling towards him while Papyrus moved in the opposite direction.

"KEEP YOUR DISTANCE FROM ME, CONSUMER OF GREASE!"

"but i love you so much, bro. c'mon, a little elbow grease is good for ya."

"NYEH! THAT PUN WAS HORRIBLE! JUST TERRIBLE! ONE OF YOUR WORST ONES YET!"

"you sure? 'cause i'm starting to think you might be a bit fried and prejudiced against my jokes."

"EUGH, NO! WHAT HAVE I STARTED?"

"nothin'. just one whopper of a pun, that's all."

"SAAAANS! IF YOU WON'T STOP YOUR PUGNACIOUS PUNNING, I'LL JUST HAVE TO PUT AN END TO IT MYSELF!"

"go ahead, hit me with your best shallot."

"NYEEEEEEEEH!" Papyrus lunged for him, attempting to cover his mouth to block the endless stream of bad puns from escaping.

"Boys!" Toriel called from down below, the pair hovering a bit too close to the edge for her liking. "I can understand the sudden need to initiate a brotherly round of roughhousing as much as the next person, but my nerves would be far more at ease if the two of you would wait until you were standing on solid ground to do so, and instead put your current focus on staying a-chive while up there."

"MRS. DREEMUR, HOW COULD YOU?! I THOUGHT WE HAD AN UNDERSTANDING!" Papyrus fake wept dramatically, but backed away a safe distance from the edge as requested of him.

"yeah, paps. better move back some before we make a mis-steak that'll cost us our lives."

"YOU SAY THAT, BUT YOU'RE ACTING LIKE YOU WANT ME TO THROW YOU OFF THIS ROOF!"

He reached over to snatch at Sans again, but before he could, he slipped and lost his balance, falling directly on his brother with a loud cry of alarm. Once again they heard the worried shouts of Toriel below.

"Sans and Papyrus Gaster!" Oh no, she had brought out the last name. "If one of you stumbles off that roof and the impact doesn't kill you, then so help me, I'll strangle the both of you myself!"

"yes, ma'am! sorry, ma'am! won't happen again!"

"YES, MA'AM! SORRY, MA'AM! WON'T HAPPEN AGAIN!"

Their tomfoolery immediately ceased and the two continued diligently painting the roof as they had before.

 ~~~~~~~~~~

"I'm so sorry for shouting at you like that, dears." She apologized once the two were finished and on safe solid ground. "But I don't know what I would have done if anything had happened to either of you."

She stole a glance at Sans's covered arms and said quietly, her voice dropping down to a whisper that only he could hear. "We've already suffered one tragedy. One is plenty enough."

He broke eye contact with her to wordlessly tug at his sleeves.

"Do they still hurt? Have you been using the balm the doctors prescribed to you?"

"yeah, i've been using it. and, no, it doesn't hurt." But while subjected under her caring gaze, he found that he couldn't lie to her. "…not as much as before."

She gave him relieved smile, happy that he decided to be honest with her. Before Papyrus could get too curious as to what they were talking about, Toriel decided to produce a distraction.

"I made lemonade earlier, and I think you boys have earned it after a job well done."

A short while later, the three were sipping on their drinks under the shade of her expansive front porch. During the evening, she liked to come out with Asgore and watch the fireflies dance about. She looked again towards the massive mountain.

"Sans? Papyrus? You mentioned earlier that the two of you occasionally climb Mount Ebott?"

The two of them nodded.

"Have you seen anything peculiar of interest?"

"…like what?"

"SANS GOES UP THERE MORE THAN I DO, SO IF HE HASN'T SEEN WHAT YOU'RE VAGUELY REFERRING TO, THEN I CERTAINLY HAVEN'T."

"Oh, just, you know… anything unusual."

"…ooohhh. you're talking about the wraiths, aren't you?"

"Well, not especially. I really did mean anything odd at all."

"well, if we're talking about the wraiths, than no, haven't seen 'em."

"I SAW A WILD GOOSE THE OTHER DAY. IT HONKED AT ME AND CHASED ME FOR A REALLY LONG TIME! I THREW A PIECE OF LETTUCE FROM A SANDWICH I HAD PACKED FOR LUNCH AT IT AND ITS ATTENTION WAS SUCCESSFULLY DIVERTED! ANOTHER SPECTACULAR VICTORY FOR THE GREAT PAPYRUS!"

"crazy bird." Sans shook his head, taking another sip of his glass before asking, "why'd you wanna know if we saw anything?"

"Because lately, a significant increase in sightings have been reported. Of the wraiths, I mean. I thought that if you two were walking the mountain trail, you may have seen something."

"nope. we haven't seen anything like that, have we, paps?"

"NO. JUST THE OCCASIONAL UNREASONABLY ANGRY BIRD."

"I see. I suppose that being pursued by a territorial goose is enough of a sight."

"do you believe in them, tori? i mean, they're just supposed to be old town legends, right?"

"I honestly don't know how to answer that question. It's true that people have lived in this town for centuries, and the existence of these shadow creatures hasn't been proven. They're even supposed to be highly skilled practitioners of magic. Magic! It all sounds so fantastical, it would be logical to believe it as pure fiction. And yet, so many have seen something up in the mountains that resembles those monsters of lore throughout the years, and their accounts all being so similar to one another with very little deviation." She breathed a relaxed sigh, sinking further into her rocking chair. "I guess I don't have a clear answer. But I do know that there are some things that science or logical reasoning just can't explain away, and I suppose the wraiths are just one of them. We may never know, and perhaps it's for the best it stay that way."

"FOR THE BEST? WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT?"

"because think about it, paps. if someone proved that the mountain had monsters on it, what do you think would happen?" Sans didn't give his brother a chance to answer before continuing. "they'd either be captured for experiments or killed on the spot. that's how it always goes in the books and movies, and art imitates life and life imitates art."

"…MAYBE THINGS WOULDN'T HAPPEN THAT WAY IF THEY WERE DISCOVERED BY THE RIGHT PERSON! IF THEY EXISTED, THAT IS."

"maybe. but that person'd have to be something special. most would kill something like that without a shred of hesitation."

He decided not to mention the more malevolent legends surrounding the wraiths – the ones where, if they caught you, they would eat you from the inside out and then inhabit your corpse in order to impersonate you.

After reading about those tales, Sans wondered how many innocent lives were taken when, many years ago, villagers were said to have burned anyone alive who went into the mountains and returned acting strange, believing their body had been abducted by a wraith.

As a child, his bullies had always told him he would never have to worry about a wraith wanting to steal his body, because you had to have a life in the first place for them to take, and his face was far too ugly for even a monster to desire.

"What about you, Sans? Do you believe the wraiths exist?" Toriel asked, snapping him out of his thoughts.

"i dunno, to be honest. i guess if enough evidence piles up, i will, but right now they still sound too much like something adults made up to make sure their kids stayed off the mountain so they didn't get eaten by bears or something." He took another sip of lemonade and chuckled. "now muffet, she definitely thinks they're real. that girl should have went on to be a cryptozoologist instead of working in her family's bakery, but she does make a mean blueberry muffin. she's gone up in the mountains for years and sometimes she comes back saying she saw something."

"Do you believe her?"

"i believe she believes she saw something, if that counts. muffet wants to see something so bad that maybe her eyes might be playing tricks on her."

"I think one's attitude towards the legends might have a lot to do with it. There are even some that travel to Mount Ebott with the sole purpose of trying to capture one on film. Almost all of them leave disappointed, but i have seen on the television some nights before in the past where one will get a photograph or video of a shadow that could be perceived as a wraith. Although, picture editing softwares exist now, don't they? So it all could be faked. This old lady doesn't know anything about modern technology - I still don't understand those me-mes you kids send me sometimes on the cellphone."

"it's pronounced 'memes', tori!" Sans actually laughed, almost spitting out his drink.

"Is that right? I've been pronouncing it wrong this entire time."

Suddenly Papyrus's cellphone went off, the familiar lyrics of Caravan Palace's 'Black Betty' filling the once relatively quiet space around them. He quickly picked it up and squinted at the screen.

"IT'S A TEXT MESSAGE. FROM UNDYNE! SHE TURNED ON HER LOCATION…? …SHE SAYS IT'S AN EMERGENCY! AND SHE NEEDS ME OVER THERE RIGHT AWAY!"

"You had better run along then and see what she wants." Toriel chuckled.

"AND I WILL! THANK YOU, MRS. DREEMUR, FOR THE DELICIOUS LEMONADE! I MUST BE OFF, FOR I AM NEEDED ELSEWHERE!"

With that, Papyrus jumped up and performed a backflip off the porch railing, landing perfectly on his feet an impressive distance away and sped off in the direction of the location Undyne had told him she was at, leaving trails of dust behind him in his wake.

"Will you be joining him? Wherever it is he's going?" Toriel asked Sans, who had moved from where he had been lounging in her hammock to sit up.

"maybe. i dunno. with undyne, an emergency can either mean anything from 'this guy is trying to rob somebody, let's pulverize him into oblivion' to 'hey, come watch me suplex this entire boulder'."

"I see. In that case, if you aren't leaving, then might I talk to you for a bit?"

"…what about, tori?"

"There were a few things that I wanted to ask you earlier, but Papyrus was here, so…" She took a deep breath, then let out a long sigh, her gaze both remorseful and sympathetic towards him for what was about to be said. "It's about you and Dr. Gaster."

"i figured as much." Sans replied flatly, then thought, "of course it had to be about that. i really don't wanna talk about this right now…"

While he had occasionally unloaded some of his familial issues onto Grillby when he just couldn't keep his inner turmoil locked away anymore and Grillby was persistent enough in getting him to open up, Toriel was his primary listening ear. The difference between the two was that when Grillby managed to convince Sans to air out his feelings, he gave as vague details as possible. He knew his friend only wanted to help; he would listen to his complaints without judging him and wouldn't spread what he heard around town, but there were just some things that occurred between him and Gaster that Sans didn't feel comfortable repeating.

Toriel, however, was a different case. She was easy to talk to, her gentle maternal aura unconsciously coaxing him into freely speaking what was on his mind on more occasions than he would have liked. She too wanted to offer her assistance in some way, even if all she could do was listen to his troubles, but he didn't want to bother her or anyone else with what he saw as trivial and petty matters. What went on between him and Gaster was solely their problem; not Grillby's, not Toriel's, not Undyne's, Alphys's, Muffet's, or even his brother's, San's believed. He and Gaster had gotten themselves into this current sad state of affairs themselves, and if their relationship was meant to be repaired at all, then that was something that could only be done by themselves.

Unfortunately, Toriel had become involved in the mess the two had created before it even truly began. When Gaster had taken him to the hospital that fateful day, it was her that treated Sans's wounds – she, his father, a few select staff at the hospital, and Sans himself were the only ones who presently bore knowledge of what his bare arms looked like. After the accident, he chose to conceal them from view to avoid any scrutinizing stares, even as the temperatures gradually began to climb. Not even Papyrus had seen the horrifying mess of burnt flesh that lied underneath the cloth.

He didn't want Papyrus to see that – Sans himself didn't want to see his arms whenever he was forced to take off his hoodie in order to apply medicine on the wounds, bathe, or change clothes.

"I didn't want to bring this topic up for discussion with Papyrus present. I know he means well, and please do not take offense for me saying this, but I feel as though he tries much too hard to force change."

Sans's sole reply was a low hum of acknowledgement; Toriel was right – he meant well, but Papyrus was rather pushy when it came to helping people with their problems, and Sans himself was no exception to this. Papyrus was a good listener, but he always wanted to help fix the problem after being informed – he was a person who wanted to see action being put towards the issue at hand with his own eyes and he expected immediate results.

His brother just wanted to help him in the only way he knew how. More so than anyone else, even Toriel with her infinite motherly doting. But Sans just couldn't let him see what he was trying so hard to hide from the eyes of the rest of the world, his physical and mental scars, even if it did mean eventually upsetting Papyrus.

Sans did everything he could for him, whether Papyrus was aware of it or not. Whether that meant anonymously slipping an extra twenty dollar bill into his wallet when he was a few bucks short of buying something he really wanted at the time or staying up until three in the morning listening to him prattle on for literal hours about his latest crush.

Sans would do almost anything for Papyrus. Nearly anything to preserve that smile that always brightened his day, no matter how terrible.

There was only one thing he could think of that he couldn't allow Papyrus.

He could pretend that everything between him and Gaster was fine, he could put on a fabricated smile and spoon feed him fake reassurances that things were getting better when they weren't, but the one thing Sans couldn't do for his brother was let him know just how broken up he really was, inside and out.

And while Toriel didn't approve of his evasive maneuvers against what she saw as procedures and methods that were supposed to be aiding him towards the process of healing mentally, she understood all too well why Sans would want to hide his serious personal affairs from Papyrus.

"One day you will have to let him in, Sans; let him know what's wrong and how you truly feel. You know that, don't you?"

"mmmnn…" His answer came in the form of an unenthusiastic and noncommital grunt.

"But I can't force the two of you to talk; it wouldn't be right, just as it isn't right for him to try to force you and Dr. Gaster to spend an extended duration of time with each other alone."

"i think maybe paps thinks that what's been going on between me and him can be solved with one talk and a hug, and then everything will go back to how it used to be."

"That's an unrealistic expectation. A familial dispute such as this could take months, perhaps even years to properly mend. And that's alright. Because healing of any kind takes time depending on the size and severity of the wound. Just like your own, Sans."

"…i lied to you earlier, tori." His voice had dropped to a whisper. "they still hurt. they still hurt a lot."

She took his hands in hers, giving them a squeeze. "I know you don't believe me when I tell you this, but it will get better." Her palms moved up to his lower arms, almost causing him to flinch from the contact. "The pain you're feeling right now will gradually fade."

He couldn't meet her eyes. "…but they won't ever go away, will they?"

This was a question that he had already asked Toriel before, one which he already knew the answer to since long before now.

But it didn't stop him from hoping, that just maybe it was possible that-

She frowned, fighting the sting of tears that threatened to form in her eyes as she gingerly traced over his sleeves. "No. Not in the manner that you wish them to. We… did the best that we could at the time, Sans. I'm so sorry we couldn't do more for you…"

"i know that. and i'm grateful for all you've done to make this bearable. it's just… one of those things that won't get any better, no matter how much time passes." He shrugged, trying to save face by acting unaffected. "maybe the same could be said about me and gaster."

"Maybe not and maybe so. But mutual effort is needed in order to bring about a change."

"i am trying, tori!" He suddenly snapped, taking a step back. "papyrus keeps telling me over and over, 'TRY THIS TIME' and i always do! but just about every single time we try to have what should be a short and civil conversation with each other, one of us ends up saying something to make the other fly off the handle! the both of us should just back off then, but no, it just gets worse and worse because neither of us will shut up! and what gets it all started in the first place is almost always something that's so stupid to get so heated up over when it's all said and done and we're thinking back on it later. and it's just getting worse and worse as the days pass by!" Sans suddenly slumped where he stood, his volume dropping to a defeated mutter. "sooner or later, we're going to stop coming to the realization that what we were even shouting at each other over was stupid to begin with. …why do we argue so much about things that are completely insignificant and have nothing to do with the actual problem? gaster's mad at me for getting kicked out of college and ruining my own life and i'm mad at him because… his crazy experiments got me hurt and he went right back to wanting me to work with him in the lab again like nothing happened after."

Toriel didn't say anything for a while. Sans had wandered over to her garden bench and sat down, his clenched hands grabbing fistfuls of his hair as he stared without emotion at the ground. He had completely shut down for the moment. It had been a while since he had done this, but she knew what to do. She found it was best to let him come back on his own terms, let him sort out the chaos in his head.

She would stand by and wait quietly until then.

He didn't stay like this for long. He never did. She had been counting down the minutes on her watch. Four minutes of silence from him when finally, he murmured,

"gaster loves his work more than he ever loved me. …i know he loves us, but he loves his work more. paps and i just can't compete with it anymore."

"What makes you believe that he loves his work more?"

"aside from the fact that he tried to get me back in the lab so soon after i'd been released from the hospital? i… started noticing things after i came home for good."

"What sort of things?" Toriel questioned cautiously.

While Sans had spoken of his continuous quarrels with Gaster whenever she could persuade him to talk, he had never once told her about anything pertaining to details he had picked up from the doctor following the origin of their disagreements. She was breaching new territory.

"back when i first started working with gaster, we spent a lot of time together. in and out of the lab. it was fun then, but at the time, i didn't really think about how papyrus felt about it. he never got good grades in the science classes in school, you know, but i did. i think me and alph got the highest scores out of everyone. but lately i've started to wonder if papyrus actually felt left out. because gaster was so focused on me, he didn't pay all that much attention to him anymore. …and i didn't either. not as much as i did before. when i stopped going to college and after we got into that fight, the really big one that kind of started all these smaller ones between us, he stopped talking to me too for a while. it was like i didn't even exist, like i was a ghost in my own house."

Toriel had to bite her tongue to keep from saying anything.

She truly did want for there to be eventually, one day in the future, a happy resolution to the Gaster family conflict. However, while she tried to remain neutral to both parties on the outside, on the inside, she leaned more towards favoring Sans's point of view on the things that went on in the household. She knew that the doctor loved both his sons and was trying just as much as Sans was to make things right, in his own misguided way, but Toriel couldn't stop herself from feeling a bit cross towards the doctor and placing the blame on him for this entire debacle.

Gaster was a man of logic and reason. Displaying and successfully evoking the more tender emotions residing in his heart came difficult to him. Sans could repeat to her every single word said by Gaster in each one of their arguments they had in these past few months and she would probably find herself capable of translating just what it was he had actually wanted to say to his son, but it wouldn't mean a thing if it came from her mouth and not his.

As much as she wanted to go off on Gaster herself on some instances after seeing Sans so miserable, Toriel knew the last thing she needed to do was encourage the two to emotionally stray further away from each other by widening the gap between them with her own biased opinions and personal feelings on the matter.

"Sans, you have nothing to feel guilty for, if that's what this is about." She rested a hand on his shoulder, sitting down next to him. "I know you well enough to believe that you truly have been putting in your best effort to make amends with Dr. Gaster. And sometimes simply that is enough."

"isn't there anything i can do to make it better though, tori? i'm so sick of fighting with him."

She thought for a few moments, then shook her head with a resigned sigh. "I'm afraid I don't, dear. I've never seen a case quite like yours and the doctor's… Asgore and I have had disagreements before, everyone does, but they never lasted long and we always grew closer afterward. During those unpleasant times, when our feelings of anger burned bright, we kept our distance from each other until we were ready to talk again. So perhaps what you are doing now is best."

"but what if he wants to talk and i'm not ready to?"

"Then tell him. Just say, 'I'm sorry, but I don't feel ready to talk yet'. If he continues to pursue the subject, then he is the one in the wrong at that point and you have right to feel upset. …I must say, I think you're handling this far more maturely than most would in your situation, Sans."

"you really think that?" He lifted his head to look up at her with wide eyes filled with disbelief.

"I wouldn't have said so if I thought differently." She let out a light chuckle, gently ruffling his hair. "You recognize when you've done wrong and feel remorseful, seeking to amend your past mistakes and readily admit to when you were wrong once the fire has died. Not many people are like that, instead choosing to stick fast to their hateful words that were said in a moment of anger out of pride. You even had the courage to walk away instead of staying to fight, even though some would unrightfully claim that doing so was cowardly. there is absolutely no shame to be found in walking away from an unpleasant situation."

"thanks tori, i… actually feel a little better now." His own words surprised him, his chest truly did feel a bit lighter than it did before. "but how did you know gaster and I got into it earlier?"

She bit her lip. "Because I received a text message from Asgore. Dr. Gaster appeared at town hall suddenly and the two have apparently been talking with each other ever since. Gorey told me from the sound of things, it seemed like the both of you had another argument."

"oh, that explains it then." He said after a beat, a sense of relief falling over him – he had thought someone in town passed by their house and somehow eavesdropped, then decided to gossip and it reached Toriel's ears.

"You know, they've known each other for years. They've been the best of friends since even before Asgore and I married. You of course weren't born at the time, but the doctor was Asgore's best man at our wedding and Asgore at his. Asgore still talks about their wedding, your father's and Miriam's."

"…gaster never told me about any of that stuff."

Sans and Papyrus didn't know anything about their mother. Gaster never spoke of her and she had died when both brothers were small, Papyrus being two years old and Sans five. Try as he might, Sans couldn't remember a thing about her. The only evidence of her ever existing were some old photos Sans had managed to smuggle out from under his father's nose, the ring she had once wore now stowed away in its box inside their house, and Sans's left eye.

Both brothers even existing was proof enough of their mother's existence; her hair color which they shared was the color of snow, but white hair existed in both their maternal and paternal family trees. Sans's left eye, that startling shade of light blue, came solely from her. There were times when Gaster wouldn't even look him in the face because of his heterochromia, and when Sans was furious, sometimes it was as if Miriam was haunting him from beyond the grave through her oldest son.

Sans took out his phone from his hoodie pocket. "i had better go see what it is that undyne wanted, just in case it really was something important. 'm sorry for suddenly blowing up on you like that, tori."

"It's alright, Sans. I know you didn't mean to and you're carrying a great amount of stress on your shoulders, but if it helped you to feel better by even the slightest amount, I would stand here and permit you to shout whatever was on your mind at me for as long as your voice would allow."

"you're too good for this sin-filled world, tori." He spoke after a pause, having raised his arms up about halfway, wanting to request a hug from her but too shy to ask despite the fact that this woman practically raised him and loved giving and receiving physical gestures of affection.

Thankfully, years of knowing him had made it easy for her to read his body language. She swiftly swept him into a comforting embrace and whispered,

"I know that this world is filled with unspeakable horrors, but I've found that life is also abundant with many indescribable blessings. Please, no matter how difficult life may become for you, never forget them."

Once again, she was right, he could admit to himself. He may have an emotionally distant father and an unattractive body, but he had been gifted a group of friends that actually cared for him and the best brother than anyone could ever ask for. If he remembered those things, the bad points of his day became more livable.

After she released him and he her, she slipped a small wad of cash into his pocket. "For the roof – you're helping to keep the household up now and the bills aren't getting any cheaper."

"thanks, tori. …for everything."

"Anytime, dear. Now run along and see what Undyne wants before she hunts you down. You wouldn't want that to happen, would you?"

Sans winced, remembering the last time he had dared to brush her off.

Piledrivers. Lots and lots of piledrivers.

He turned towards the direction Papyrus had taken off and his phone buzzed; Undyne had sent him her location. Good, it seemed as though he wasn't in hot water with her, otherwise she would have just ignored his text and hunted him down, as Toriel said.

She and Papyrus were down at the riverbed, but she gave no details about just what it was they were doing down there and why she had texted Papyrus saying there was an emergency.

Oh well. He supposed that he would find out when he got there.

 ~~~~~~~~~~

"SANS! Do you have ANY idea how late you are?!" Undyne barked as soon as he came into her line of view.

"i didn't know i was supposed to show up…?" He offered with a small shrug. "you sent the text to my bro, not me, so how was i supposed to know you wanted me here too? i just thought i should show up since paps said you told him it was an emergency."

"Oh, don't give me that crap!" She stomped over and jabbed a finger into his chest. "and it is an emergency! Haven't you heard the news?!"

"uh…?"

"The town police has been talking about it ALL week – the shadow monster sightings up in the mountains have been CRAZY lately! Chief of police said that if somebody could catch one and bring it back to the station, there'd be something good in it for them! Do you have ANY idea what that means, Sans?!"

"uh-"

"IT MEANS UNDYNE MIGHT FINALLY GET TO BE AN OFFICIAL MEMBER OF THE FORCE IF SHE CAN PULL IT OFF, WHICH I BELIEVE SHE CAN!" Papyrus answered for her, causing her to whip her head in his direction.

"PAPYRUS!" Undyne yelled, jumping over to him and grabbing him into a head lock. "Don't interrupt me when I was just about to tell him myself! …But thanks for the confidence – really appreciate it!"

"IF YOU APPRECIATE ME, YOU WOULD STOP NOOGIE-ING ME!" He nearly squealed, trying to break out of her hold.

She quickly released him and bounced back to Sans.

"I've called up Alphys and Muffet for help in planning this whole thing out. Alphys is gonna help me track one down and Muffet probably knows more about those things than everybody else in town put together! They're late too, but they're supposed to be here any minute now. The only reason why I haven't noogie-d you into the next dimension is because you happened to show up before they did, so consider yourself lucky, punk!"

"then, uh, what's mettaton here to do?"

"Mettaton? I didn't invite hi-" She noticed his gaze straying to over her shoulder and turned around, then exclaimed, "Oh HECK no!"

"Oh heck YES, darlings!" Mettaton retorted, stepping forward with Alphys and Muffet following behind.

"Why are you here?!"

"Well that certainly is a rude way to greet an old friend!" He huffed, sticking his nose into the air and crossing his arms. He cracked open one eye, "But since you're so curious, I was over at Alphys's house when you texted – she's helping Blooky and I with our band, you know. Audio equipment, technical stuff and such and all that jazz. When I heard that you wanted her, Sans, Papyrus, and even Muffet to come here, but not me, well… I simply wouldn't stand for it! …So here I am, in the flesh. Uninvited, but fashionably late, as per usual."

"…And just what is 'even Muffet' supposed to mean?" Muffet stared at him with narrowed eyelids, a sweet smile on her face but the danger that lied under her expression was evident to all. "I'm beginning to believe that I am unwelcome among this circle of friends. Perhaps I should just go and-"

"No, wait!" Undyne shouted, bowling over Mettaton to reach her. "Don't leave! He's the one that wasn't invited, not you! And I really need your help with this, Muffet."

"Alright, since my company means so much to you, I suppose I can stay for a while…" She giggled, her mood doing a complete one-eighty degree shift.

"Okay, now that everyone is here, plus the unexpected and unwanted addition of Mettaton-"

"Hey! What did I ever do to you?!"

"Let's get down to business." Undyne walked over to a tree stump by the water's edge and raised one foot to rest on it. "…So, how are we going to pull this off?"

"Y-You mean you called all of us here and you have no idea what you're doing?" Alphys asked, gobsmacked.

"Well DUH, if I had any idea on what I'm supposed to do, I wouldn't have bothered dragging you all to this spot." Undyne looked at them as if they were the ones wasting her time. "Mount Ebott is HUGE. Like… REDONKULOUSLY huge. Finding one of those shadow monsters would be like finding a needle in a haystack, if the haystack was the size of… I dunno, a whale or something? Anyway, I hate to admit this, I mean REALLY hate it, but I can't just go tearing up there looking for something that's lived there its whole life and knows the place better than I ever will and all the places it can hide. It's a mission bound for failure if I go up there unprepared – I gotta be smart about this. So, that's where all of you come in."

"…uh, undyne?"

"Yes, Sans? What is your question?"

"you do realize that you're talking about catching a creature that isn't supposed to exist, right? i didn't know you believed in them."

"I didn't until the guys at the station started talking about them! It STILL sounded completely bogus to me until all these supposed to be really credible eyewitnesses started showing up at the station and Gerson and the rest started passing around the pictures those people turned in. I saw 'em with my own two eyeballs and they looked real, not like those computer edited photos they show sometimes on the TV. I even heard they might be sending them to Dr. Gaster so he can test if they're fakes or not."

"gaster wouldn't bother doing something like that – he'd just look and say they were fakes without even paying attention to what's on 'em."

"He will if these reports get to be a big enough thing around the town!" Undyne shot back with a maniacal grin. "If the doctor gives the word that they're the real deal, then the hunt is on. And I'm not talking about myself – there'll be people from all over the country flocking here to the mountain. I've got to do this now before that happens and this great little window of opportunity that's opened up just for me is suddenly slammed shut in my face. …SO HELP A GAL OUT, WOULD'JYA?!"

She received mixed levels of enthusiasm from the replies of the small group she had gathered, but their hesitation was apparently enough of an answer for her – and the answer she had picked up from them was yes.

Sans sighed to himself,

"this is going to be just like the time she tried capturing santa claus when we were kids…"

"Poor Mr. Dreemur… He never saw the net coming." Alphys added solemnly.

"Alright, so listen up you pack of weenies! But not you though, Alphys. You're a peach and we're all glad that you're here." Undyne couldn't stop from showing her favoritism among present company. "So, back to what I was saying before Mr. Negative Nancy threw me off track – how are we gonna do this?"

Everyone was silent for a while.

"howz about we all go to lunch to think it over and talk about this again sometime after?"

"It's almost evening, you lazy clod!"

"Undyne, dearie, you're going about this all wrong." Muffet's smooth voice interjected.

"How so?" Undyne turned to her and crossed her arms impatiently.

"If you really wish to find a wraith, then you need to know exactly what it is you're walking into. They're clever beings, Undyne. They're adept masters at hiding and keeping their presence hidden from the world. It won't be like capturing a pesky possum eating your pet cat's food or a raccoon rummaging through your garbage and strewing it everywhere each night. This outbreak of sightings is merely a game of peek-a-boo to them, most likely. If you go up there looking to capture one of them, all that awaits you is disappointment."

"You're a fine one to talk, Muffet! You go up in those mountains several times a week looking for 'em and you've been doing it practically since you learned to walk!"

"Yes, dearie, all of what you just said is true. However, my goal isn't to apprehend one like a common criminal." Muffet's smile turned eerie. "The wraiths are simply impossible to catch, that's what I've come to believe. If you do encounter one and attempt to take one into custody, your face may just get ripped off for trying. You've heard the more… malevolent tales concerning them, haven't you?"

"Is that supposed to scare me?" Undyne scoffed. "So the wraiths can kill me. So could another human. So could a dog. So could a very dedicated duck!"

Papyrus nodded readily at her last point.

"The wraiths aren't that special in that department. What DOES make them special to me is that they're gonna help me finally secure a place in the police force!"

Undyne had known since before she ever entered kindergarten that she wanted to be a police officer when she grew up. She wanted to take down bad guys and arrest them, punish them and keep them away from the rest of society for the good people's sake and peace of mind. But when she graduated high school and tried to apply for a position she was immediately rejected. Apparently her frequent brawls with the local youth and her firey personality had branded Undyne as a troublemaker in the eyes of the force, everybody except Gerson.

He sympathized with her, so he talked with the rest of his coworkers and after much debate, they finally gave her a job – sort of. She was relegated to the position of 'mountain patrol', a fake position given to her out of pity where she circled the road that stretched around the base of Mount Ebott to search for anyone that may be breaking the law. She had received her own uniform and a walkie talkie like the others, but it was obvious that she wasn't considered one of them by the rest of the officers.

Undyne had done her job with as much passion as she could muster at first, thinking that if they saw her hard at work then a promotion might be on her horizon in the future. She had caught several individuals before that had tried to make the mountain their own personal dumpster through illegal dumping. She had apprehended one man who had committed several robberies and hid his stolen goods somewhere in that area. She had even prevented a very drunk man from kidnapping a woman who had been walking by herself that night and witnessed him trying to drag her up onto the mountain to do heaven knows what with her.

And despite all that, everyone on the force with the exception of Gerson still looked down on her.

That's why Undyne felt she had to prove herself to them by doing the impossible: capturing one of the elusive wraiths that roamed the mountain territories.

"Muffet does actually have a point, kind of." Alphys timidly spoke, causing the attention to be drawn to her. "Monsters or no monsters, it's still i-incredibly dangerous up there! Like you said, Mount Ebott is enormous, and how many times have you actually gone up there?"

Undyne looked down at her hand and began counting on her fingers. "…None."

"See? S-So maybe before you go up there, maybe it would be better to… become more familiar with the geography? Muffet, does the library have a map of the mountain?"

"I've got something better than the library…" Undyne whipped her head around, tossed a piece of blank paper then a pencil and pointed with a shout, "Sans! Draw me a map of Mount Ebott!"

He looked at the sheet and pencil resting at his feet and back at her with an owlish gaze.

"are you insane? i can't draw a map of the entire mountain!"

"I thought that Papyrus said you and him have been up there a lot in the past few months!"

"yeah, we have, but not enough that we've memorized everything up there! i've been up there more than paps and I haven't even made it one third of the way to the top! if mount ebott was an english mastiff, then we're the equivalent of a bunch of fleas jumping on its back! i don't think there's a person that's ever lived in this town or anywhere on earth that knows everything there is to know about that place and its geography. there is no complete map of ebott because i've looked. this whole idea of your is dangerous and crazy, undyne."

He was expecting her to blow up, but instead she inhaled through her nose and placed her forehead against her palm.

"You don't think I know that? But this may be the best chance I'll ever have of getting some respect from the force."

"Is getting respect from people that never believed in you worth possibly losing your life?"

Surprisingly, it was Mettaton that had asked her this question, and he for once looked serious.

"Undyne, if you truly want to hunt down one of those monsters, then I support your ambitions entirely, but you're still heading into something risky. You haven't planned this at all, you just assembled the team and hoped we'd have what you wanted to hear. And as for earning respect? Who needs it! Everyone told me I was making a mistake when I changed my name and formed my band, and they still do, but I'm happier now than I ever was before. I'm sure that fame will come our way any day now, but we're preparing ourselves for it every day. You, however, despite having told us that you wanted to play it smart, were planning on tearing off up there immediately after this little meeting of your is adjourned, correct?"

Undyne wouldn't look at him, but she gave a short nod.

"That's what I thought. I know this feels like a race against time to secure a place where you are comfortable belonging, but you need patience if you truly want to pull this off. Do some research, look at some maps, even if they are incomplete because some knowledge is better than none, and then you can go into the mountains with nets and fists ablaze to bag yourself a shadow monster!"

"…Wow, Mettaton." Alphys stared at him with wide eyes. "T-That's the most wise I think I've ever heard you speak! Usually you're encouraging us to make bad decisions for the sake of drama."

"You're right. He is acting strangely out of character…" Undyne pondered aloud, then shouted, "You're not Mettaton at all! You're actually one of the wraiths, aren't you?!"

Everyone knew she was joking, but the sudden increase in volume of her voice still made Mettaton jump. Before he could respond to her accusation, Undyne grabbed him around the ankle and swung him over her shoulder.

"Undyne, put me down this instant!"

"Nuh uh, you're coming down to the station with me. You're under arrest."

Everyone started laughing and snickering at his vain attempts to release himself from her hold, Alphys and Muffet having taken out their phones to record the scene.

"Undyne, please! If you're going to insist on carrying me, at least make it a princess carry! I deserve that much!" He loudly whined.

"Now that sounds like something Mettaton would actually say…" Undyne halted her steps, pretending to be in deep thought. "Huh, maybe the wraith hasn't completely taken over yet…"

"well, you know what the legends say to do, right?" Sans grinned, walking towards the two at a leisurely pace. "when the wraith's taken over, you burn it. when there's still hope left for the poor victim, you drown it out."

"…Don't. You. Dare." Mettaton hissed.

"Grab his legs, Sans."

"you got it, boss."

Together, the two heaved the frantically wiggling Mettaton closer to the slowly moving water. He began to screech when they started swinging him back and forth.

"SHOULD WE DO SOMETHING…?" Papyrus questioned the two girls, feeling as though he should perhaps say something.

"No, dear. This is just a… how you say, a jape." Muffet giggled.

"I'm not saying anything because this should be enough payback for him erasing my downloaded Mew Mew Kissy Cutie episodes on that disc I left laying out just so he could use it."

Papyrus didn't think Alphys was the type to partake in petty revenge, but the more you know, he thought.

"Sans! Undyne! Stop this madness immediately! My fabulous hairstyle will be ruined! And my makeup will run!"

"One…! Two…! Three…!" "one…! two…! three…!"

At the count of three, they both tossed him into the river, screeching and yowling like a cat when the cool water hit his body. Undyne and Sans both gave a whoop and cheered, laughing as they bumped fists before it turned into an elaborate and handsy handshake that ended in the two playfully wrestling each other on the ground.

"PILE DRIVER!"

"ow, undyne!"

"HEADLOCK!"

"nooooo! c'mon 'dyne, is this any way to treat your partner in crime?"

"Sorry, Sans, but war takes no prisoners. You already know what's next. NOOGIE NOOGIE NOOGIE NOOGIE!"

"agh! your knuckles are sharp!"

Mettaton spluttered and was thrashing in the water, trying to flounder towards shore but failing miserably.

"Come on, Mettaton, stop being so dramatic." Undyne rolled her eyes, her arm still wrapped around Sans's neck. "You're not drowning, the water only comes up to your collarbones if you're standing up."

He immediately ceased his splashing and did as she instructed, standing on his own feet to find that what she said was correct.

"…So it seems." Was all that he said, his voice small and clearly embarrassed.

"c'mon. i'll help ya out." Sans crouched down and offered his hand.

Mettaton smiled to himself, reaching over to clasp his outstretched palm. But before he could pull Sans into the water, Sans grabbed him and flung him over his shoulder then onto the grass on his back.

"…I dislike you with great intensity." He narrowed his eyes at Sans.

"i give you points for trying though, pal."

"Okay, so I will hand it to Mettaton that he's made a good point. I don't need to rush into this blindly and risk ending up a future episode of 'Missing'." Undyne began.

"And you had to throw my poor self into the water to admit that?" He sniffed, wringing out his soaking wet hair.

"Yes. It was entirely necessary, Mettaton. To banish the wraith from your body." She nodded sagely. "Anyway, I've decided that what I'm going to do is, I'm gonna find all the maps that I can of Ebott and, ugh, study them, bleh. And Muffet, if you could lend me some of your books, I'd really appreciate it."

To no one's surprise, she retrieved a large and thick book with an ominous featureless figure on the cover out of her little black spider plushie purse that she always carried (how did she even fit it in there?) and handed it to Undyne.

"You're wasting your time, dearie."

"You'll be saying that when I've caught what you've been looking for for literal years in just a matter of days." Undyne shot back good naturedly.

"Undyne! Patience? Future episode of 'Missing'? Remember?!" Mettaton piped up again – despite being completely drenched by the two, he still cared very much about her.

"I got it, I got it. But once I'm done doing the boring part, I'm not leaving a single stone uncovered until I find a wraith! Thank you all for coming here today, but I've gotta get started! Later, dorks!"

Undyne then sped off in the direction of the town's library, or librarby, as the mispelled sign out in front stated, without another word of goodbye.

"She calls us all here suddenly and she's gone just as quickly." Mettaton remarked with a defeated sigh. "Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to blow dry my hair now."

"you aren't mad at us, are you?"

"…No. I'm not. It was all in good fun, after all." He then smirked. "But I'll be getting you both back for it in the future, darling. Just you wait and see."

"bring it on, matt."

"I'm afraid I have no clue who you're speaking of." He all but sang, turning around and giving everyone else a wave goodbye. "Ta-tah, darlings."

"WHAT ABOUT YOU, ALPHYS?" Papyrus asked, "HOW WILL YOU BE SPENDING YOUR EVENING?"

"I-I think I'll catch up with Undyne. If she really does want to do this, then I think I should help however I can and k-keep an eye on her so she doesn't do anything s-sudden or rash, like Mettaton said."

"OKAY! HAVE FUN!"

Once Alphys had left, it was just Sans and Papyrus with Muffet.

"i hope you aren't expecting that book to be in one piece when you get it back." Sans told her. "i dunno if you noticed, but she can be kind of rough handling things."

"Oh, that's perfectly alright, dearie. If she damages my book, I'm certain that she can reimburse me to purchase another copy."

Both brothers looked at each other with a worried frown – that book had not looked cheap.

"It's a lovely evening, isn't it, boys?" She gestured to skies above that were beginning to be tinted with orange. "A perfect evening for a mountain walk, wouldn't you agree?"

"is that what you're gonna do?"

"I'm afraid not. Mummy needs me to make a birthday cake for a customer that's coming by to pick it up tomorrow. But maybe I'll see you on the mountain trail sometime. Ciao."

"WELL, SANS, EVERYONE ELSE IS GONE WITH THE NIGHT VASTLY APPROACHING! WE SHOULD PROBABLY BOTH HEAD HOME NOW AND-"

"actually, i think i'll go do what muffet suggested and take a walk." He quickly replied, not wanting to see Gaster just yet.

"WELL, ALRIGHT…" Papyrus looked like someone had told him his dog died. "JUST DON'T STAY OUT TOO LATE, ALRIGHT? AND KEEP YOUR CELL PHONE ON YOU AT ALL TIMES! IF THE BATTERY IS RUNNING LOW, THEN COME HOME IMMEDIATELY!"

"will do. i'll see ya later, paps."

He started walking in the direction of the mountain, its magnificent shadow stretching over him and the rest of the town.

Wraiths.

He still wasn't convinced they exist.

 ~~~~~~~~~~

"Hello, dearie."

Sans nearly jumped out of his skin. He had said so earlier that Muffet should have been a cryptozoologist, but he also believed that she would make an excellent assassin with how she could quietly creep up on unsuspecting people.

"muffet! i thought you left."

"I did. And now I'm back, but only momentarily."

They were standing at the base of Mount Ebott directly in front of one of the dirt roads that led into the mountain.

"so, uh, what brings you here?"

"I wanted to show you something interesting." She smiled in a way that made him feel somewhat uncomfortable.

She moved towards a thick group of bushes and motioned for him to follow.

"…you're not going to show me a dead body, are you?"

"Don't be ridiculous, dearie. I said something interesting, did I not?"

She then moved aside the shrubbery to reveal a small statue that he had never seen before. It looked almost like a vase, hourglass shaped, and it seemed ancient, probably hundreds of years old.

"Now look inside it."

He did as instructed and found a large stone inside, colored red, yellow and orange, and was carved in the shape of the sun. It was resting on a pedestal of some sort and large silver prongs held the stone firmly in place to ensure it wasn't easily removed.

"I bet you had no idea this was here, did you?"

"no, i didn't. …so what is it?"

"This monument was constructed by the people of Ebott Village many centuries ago. There are more of them spread out at the base of the mountain. They were made to keep the villagers safe here, and the wraiths confined up there."

"how are these things supposed to keep them up there?"

"That stone inside the totem is a sunstone. According to gemology it's believed that they can harness the power of the sun. The combined power of these stones create a ring of protection that wards off the shadow monsters; think of it as being almost like an electric fence."

"i'd never heard that before." He rubbed his chin, leaning closer to the statue. "i can't remember ever seeing one of these things before, and they're all over the town?"

"Just around the base, but yes."

"i wonder why i never noticed them."

"They've become well hidden throughout the years. The legends began to fade out, nature's madness took over, and they were gradually forgotten. I suppose if they were well known, some might try to steal the sunstones inside. Of course, according to the old documents on them I acquired, they say misfortune falls on those that would attempt to take the stones."

Sans wasn't superstitious in the slightest, but he couldn't help but think aloud. "something still doesn't make sense, though – the myths say that wraiths would steal the bodies of humans to impersonate them. if the statues make some kind of invisible magic ring that they can't cross, why go to the trouble of stealing a body if they're stuck on the mountain?"

"Oh, Sans. Don't you see? That's precisely why they would need the body of a human." At his perplexed expression, she continued with a wry smile. "The bodies of a wraith, made of shadows, would incinerate if they made contact with the sunstone ring. So, they capture a human that wandered into their territory, hollow out the body, then liquify their own body and crawl inside so they can safely bypass the ring."

Sans felt his stomach churn at the graphic mental images she had instilled in his brain. "that's disgusting, muffet."

"Heehee! You should see your face – so sour right now." She giggled. "Well, I just thought I'd share that with you. Have fun up there, oh, and don't get eaten!"

"you're full of it, muffet!" He called out to her as she began walking away with that light girlish chuckle of hers.

"Is that any way to talk to your amicable ex-girlfriend?" She laughed.

"you're not my ex-girlfriend! it was one date, that gaster set up, and we both agreed it wasn't a real date because neither of us agreed to it."

Even though they had left the 'date' as better friends than before and Sans didn't hold any romantic feelings for her then or presently, Muffet had told him at the time that he wasn't her type. He understood entirely, she wasn't obligated to feel that way towards him even though the two did get along swimmingly when she wasn't being morbid. But he couldn't help but wonder if his looks had anything to do with her decision.

"You know I'm just teasing you, dearie. No need to get so hot under the collar. And speaking of hot, aren't you steaming by now in that hoodie?"

"a little, but it's nothing i can't handle." He didn't mind Muffet asking about his hoodie – she wouldn't look down on him for wearing it out of season because she too had a peculiar fashion sense.

"Suit yourself, dearie. Bye-bye~"

After Muffet had left, for real this time, he began his ascension up the mountain trail. The mountain didn't have any roads built on it, just traversable paths created by nature. As far as he knew, nobody lived anywhere up there despite how expansive it was. It had remained the same for centuries, devoid of modern civilization and a sanctuary for Ebott's wildlife.

The dirt roads only stretched so far before grass overtook them. From that point onward was where the mountain began looking like several different worlds had been melded together. Sans had only seen a handful of the mysterious sights Mount Ebott had to offer, but what he had seen made it sometimes worth the hike up there: a lake with waterfalls in sizes both great and small, a field of flowers that stretched on and on with no end in sight, thick forests that were so dark it was almost impossible to see your own hand in front of your face…

And that was just what he had seen with his own eyes one-third of the way up the mountain. He hadn't explored the sides of the mountain or the areas higher up, like the snowcapped top or the caves rich with odd stones and minerals. He supposed he could spend every day on this mountain for the rest of his life and still not know everything about the place. Perhaps if he continued visiting and going a little further each time, he would be the first to create a complete map of Ebott.

Sans didn't come here to chase shadows or cause trouble for the environment like most did when they passed by - he came here because it was quiet, save for the songs of birds and the wailing of the cicadas. Being surrounded by the peaceful scenery and focused on the thrill of the climb took his mind off of the problems he had left behind at home.

When he was younger, he had wanted to explore the mountain with his group of friends. They were labelled far too young for such a dangerous activity, and were consequently restricted to playing near the river bed and the small wooded areas spread around town; everyone pretended they were at Mount Ebott, but now he was living out his childhood self's dreams of adventure here in the present.

Even so, he missed those days dearly.

His younger self never imagined that everything in his life would have turned out the way it did. When he was younger, he thought his body looked the way it did because of baby fat and he would eventually grow out of it after he reached puberty. Instead, he only grew more bulky. When he was younger, he thought that he and his father would be working together as equals to revitalize the town that was considered dead-end by not only outsiders, but its own citizens. Instead, he was injured by one of his father's own creations and ruined his one chance to get an education from a prestigious academy thus estranging himself from his father, and the townspeople still wanted to leave and would complain whenever they did and came back.

Sans hadn't been in a rush to grow up when he was a child, but he thought that it would have been more fun than what it turned out to be.

He was the one out of the group that was supposed to soar above them all in terms of success, and he had sunken below them all.

Papyrus was doing the exact same thing he was doing; completing odd jobs around town, but he was only doing that to gain experience and had plenty of drive. Undyne was bettering herself every day and was aiming for a higher position in Ebott's police force even if her methods of attempting to do so were insane in his eyes. Alphys had more or less taken his place as Gaster's first hand assistant in the lab after he quit having anything to do with science – he didn't hold it against Alphys at all even though she apologized constantly for it even in the present, he was the one that chose to quit. Even Mettaton had a better future planned for himself than him; yes, he was a bit in over his head with his dream of instantly achieving fame and becoming a star, but Sans had to admit that he was creative and talented in some aspects. He might not achieve prime stardom like he wanted, but Sans wouldn't be surprised if he did aquire a little slice of recognition in the future.

Everyone else seemed to know exactly what it was they were doing with their lives.

He didn't have a clue anymore.

There existed legends of people that climbed the mountain only to disappear without a trace. Paranormal explanations or not, there still existed records of persons that were last seen heading towards the mountain then never heard from again. That was many years ago though, and nobody has been reported missing in this town in over a hundred years.

But, if he were to disappear, Sans wondered, would he be missed…?

He rapidly shook his head, immediately banishing the intrusive thought. Of course he would be missed; Toriel would grieve for him if something ever happened to cut his life short, his friends would mourn, and Papyrus… Papyrus would never be the same without him. If Sans died, he would be taking a piece of his brother with him.

He didn't know why such a thought would enter his head in the first place; even though his life had been turned on its head, he had a great group of friends and he appreciated being alive.

But he still could have lived without the permanent marks on his arms. They were throbbing painfully under his sleeves, and he hadn't brought any medicine with him to ease the sensation.

Sans could hear the sound of running water up ahead after a while longer of walking. He came to a clearing where the river was and looked both left and right to see if it was safe to shed his hoodie. He wasn't sure what he was looking for; all that was here in this area were birds, and they couldn't blab his secret to the town.

He slid his arms out of the sleeves, crouched down by the rocky mountain riverbed and dipped them into the clean cool water. It soothed the angry enflamed marks on his skin, but only a little. Not even the balms and creams Toriel prescribed to him completely eased the pain.

He had been in near constant pain since the accident, and he wondered if that was how he would be spending the rest of his life despite Toriel's reassurances.

Sans had allowed himself to relax for a few minutes, listening to the wind blow through the nearby tree branches as he tended to his wounds. Every muscle, every joint in his body locked up when he heard the bushes on the other side of the river rustle.

It didn't sound like a small creature made the noise. He hurriedly yanked his arms from the water and threw on his hoodie before scrambling for the thickets on his own side of the river. If he left now, he would be creating too much noise, so he would wait it out until whatever it was left.

The creature's footsteps sounded too light to be a bear but too heavy for a raccoon or possum. He waited, concealing himself in the shrubbery until only his eyes were peeking out between the leaves. The sounds gradually grew closer as the seconds ticked by, buy Sans felt like he had been waiting for the noisemaker to show itself for hours.

Finally, it stepped out of the forest, and he was surprised to find himself looking at a girl.

At least, she appeared to be a girl. And she was wearing incredibly bizarre clothing; a large floppy pointed hat and a long sleeved robe that stretched down to her feet. Her hair was unusually long as well, reaching past her waist. But the most unusual thing about this girl was her skin – it was dark. Beyond dark. Blacker than black.

And her eyes. As she came closer towards the river bed, even at this distance, he could see them clearly, constrasting with the blackness of her face. They were two pretty gray blue spheres, glowing and the color of celestite.

He had one blue eye as well, but he liked the shade of hers more. They held a mysterious quality to them that he felt his didn't.

Oh, but it was obvious to him that she was wearing contacts and this wasn't her real eye color. People's eyes didn't glow like that. People didn't dress like that normally either, so she must be wearing a costume. But what would she be doing way out here in the mountain wilderness wearing what looked like a wraith costume? Was it some sort of prank?

Everything made sense now – those photos Undyne saw must have been of this girl. People were beginning to believe that she was a real monster. Sans was all for playing good harmless pranks, but this one was dangerous. Someone might see her like that and a very gun happy person might mistake her for something otherworldly and shoot her, he thought.

He had planned on leaving when she did, but he felt the need to warn her.

Sans was about to step out from the bushes but froze when she suddenly slowly raised her arms into the air and her chest began to glow with a white light.

She began singing in a strange tongue unfamiliar to him,

 amita ibiria amore

amita sibidia samora

mia sari mi ia…

Her voice was deeper than he would have expected and melancholy, almost mournful in tone. It pulled at his heart in a strange way he couldn't quite describe. Calming, yet sorrowful all the same. But he didn't have long to dwell on her song itself before he had something entirely different to focus on.

The flowing water in the river abruptly stirred, unnatural ripples beginning to form on the surface. From one side of the riverbank to the other, large stones from the river's bottom rose up to create a sturdy pathway, stable enough for one to walk across without fear of it crumbling and whoever was on top falling in.

The girl lifted her robe slightly and placed one foot, covered in what looked like a sandal ethnic in design onto the makeshift bridge. Satisfied that it was secure, she stepped onto the rocks and began slowly making her way across. As she did, the stones that had meshed together became undone and sunk back down to the watery depths behind her as she again sang in that undecipherable language,

amita ibiria amore

sia a sibiria samora

mia sari…

When she reached the other side of the riverbank safely, whatever was left of the pathway had crumbled away by the time her singing ceased. Sans was stunned and in disbelief – despite his earlier skepticism, he couldn't deny what he had seen was magic. Magic fueled by the power of this strange girl's voice.

Beyond a shadow of a doubt, this girl was a wraith.

"muffet would probably kill a man in cold blood to be in my place right now."

But then a realization hit him that made his heart drop down to his stomach:

This girl was a wraith.

A shadow monster.

A creature of legend.

And in those legends, the wraiths murdered people to snatch their bodies.

If she saw him, would she try to end his life? At this thought, his heart began pounding with fear when moments before it had been from wonder.

He needed to get away without being noticed, but how?

Sans didn't get to think of an effective strategy before he was spotted. The wraith was standing no less than three feet away from where he was crouched, staring down at him with slightly widened half lidded eyes that Sans couldn't decide whether it made her appear adorably sleepy or incredibly seductive.

Either way, she was standing over him and he had very little time to think of a way to escape her shadowy clutches before she pounced him.

He quickly rose to his feet, but before he could move another inch the wraith let out a tiny squeak and scrambled backwards with widened eyes and a heaving chest. That was a curious response, he thought.

Common sense told him that now would be an opportune moment to run, but curiosity told him that he should test this. Curse the scientist that was still within him.

Instead of fleeing, he took a step towards her and guaged her reaction. The monster girl let out another distressed cry and scurried away from him until her heels were one inch from her being in the river – one more step, even a little one, and she would fall in.

Oh the irony.

She was afraid of him.

Well that simply wouldn't do.

For reasons he couldn't quite begin to ponder, the idea of a girl, even a monster girl, being afraid of him didn't sit well with Sans.

He smiled at her in a manner that he hoped appeared friendly and inviting.

"hey," She flinched at the sound of his voice, but he continued. "it's alright. no need to feel scared. 'm not gonna hurt ya, see?"

He held out his hand towards her, but it didn't appear she had listened to or understood a word he was saying because she let out a small scream and stumbled backwards, nearly falling headfirst into the river.

And she would have, if he hadn't rushed forward to catch her.

Everything around them stilled. It seemed as though even the birds in the trees and the water below them had hushed to gawk at the sheer novelty of the situation they were in. She was bent backwards, feet barely on the ground and he was holding her with one hand around her shoulders and the other wound around her lower back. And they were looking each other directly in the eye.

She was so tiny compared to him.

It was just like a scene from one of Alphys's cheesy shoujo mangas, he would acknowledge later, but while in the moment, he was rendered speechless from the suddenness of the occurrence. Her skin was cold, he noticed, the closest comparison he could think of being as if she had been sitting in front of a powerful air conditioner for several hours.

Both remained motionless for an undisclosed amount of time until the wraith started trembling in his arms, wiggling to get out of his grip.

"stop it. if i let you go now you'll tumble right in. i don't think you went to the trouble to make a bridge before just to get wet, did you?"

But she only squirmed harder, and he almost dropped her a few times during this short duration. When she showed no sign of complying to his reasonable request for her sake, he yanked her closer to him and tried to step away from the river with her.

The river was different up here compared to in town; the water moved faster and if she fell in and didn't know how to swim, she could easily drown. That is, if she needed to breathe in order to live. But Sans wasn't about to take any chances and just assumed that she needed to.

Their chests were now pressed up against each other. The thrum of her chest didn't match his – it didn't sound anything like a human's heart beat should, and though he was entirely unfamiliar with this creature's biology, he could tell that it was thrumming faster than it normally would.

Thump… thump… thump…

But it was still far too slow for any healthy human's heartbeat to sound. If he didn't believe that she was something paranormal before, he would have now.

Her fingers dug painfully into his shoulders, small hands shoving at his chest and clawing at his wrists to get him to release her, and several shaky sounds escaped from her throat all the while, noises that he assumed must have been unsuccessful attempts at using her voice-based magic. Only when they were both at a safe distance from the water did he release her.

She instantly sprang away from him, turning her back to Sans and fleeing into the thick expanse of trees, blending into the shadows of the forest around her perfectly and rendering her invisible.

Sans lingered around the area just long enough to regain his breath, but he had seen enough for one day – it was time to go home.

By the time he reached his house, Papyrus had finished making dinner but Gaster still wasn't home yet, which was fine for Sans, but his brother despaired over another portion of his cooking going to waste if their father didn't return that night. Sometimes, as Sans occasionally stayed at Grillby's home until things blowed over, so did Gaster, but with Asgore at the Dreemur residence.

A few hours later, it was made clear that tonight was going to be one of those nights, so in order to spare Papyrus's feelings over his culinary creation going unconsumed, Sans ate Gaster's share. Which would only add a few more pounds to his already plump figure, he lamented.

He didn't tell Papyrus about his encounter on the mountain before heading upstairs to his room. Would his brother even believe him? He could barely believe it himself, and it had happened to him! And he couldn't stop thinking about it either. Usually, most people did one of two things when encountering the unknown; tell everyone they knew and didn't know about it, or they kept it to themselves for the rest of their lives. He wasn't sure if he could do either.

After a while of trying to distract his mind by watching television, playing a game, or reading, he finally gave up. He couldn't keep his thoughts from drifting to the wraith he had seen, spoken to, and even touched.

He sat at his desk and pulled out a sketchbook; it had once been filled with formulas and sketches for inventions when he was Gaster's apprentice, but he had since torn those out and filled the empty book with random drawings and doodles. He opened the book and stopping at a blank page, then began sketching the best he could from his memory.

Sans didn't know how long he had spent there, but it was pitch black outside by the time he finished. It wasn't perfect by any means, but it was something that he could remember this day by. He had a feeling though that he would never forget what happened today, even if he tried from this point onward to forget.

And he was right; he never did forget this day.

Because today was the beginning of an entirely new world being opened for Sans and his brother.

 ~~~~~~~~~~

Sans awoke to what sounded like Gaster clambering around downstairs below his room. So he had come home at some point. He rolled over to face his clock and saw that it was eleven thirty. Not surprising, since he had stayed up late last night. Dear old dad wouldn't be happy with him that he slept the morning away once again, but in his defense, as he said yesterday, Grillby would still be serving from his breakfast menu right now.

He took a shower then cautiously made his way to the kitchen. To his surprise, Gaster and Papyrus were actually eating at the table. Both of them looked up from their meals to stare at him, and he felt out of place for not the first time in this household since the accident.

Sans briefly wondered if his brother and Gaster would get along just fine if he weren't around.

But then again, Gaster might shift his scientific prodigy-making plan onto his brother or Alphys if he didn't keep watch over him. It seemed he would have to continue being a nuisance for their safety and wellbeing.

He pulled up a chair and sat down without a word.

"You're late. As per usual."

"if i'm late then so are you. you're eating breakfast too."

Gaster didn't appreciate that at all, glowering at him from across the table. Papyrus quickly looked for a topic to lighten the mood.

"D-DID I MENTION THAT UNDYNE HAS BEEN WORKING HARD FOR A PROMOTION LATELY?!" He all but squawked.

"Is that so…?" Their father quirked an eyebrow at his youngest son's squirrely behavior then took a nonchalant sip of his coffee. "Ah, speaking of recent news, have either of you heard about what's been happening on Mount Ebott lately?"

"…" Neither said a word.

Gaster continued anyway regardless. "The people of this town are saying that they're catching glimpses of monsters in the mountain's wilderness. Can you imagine such a thing? What utter nonsense.

"yup. utter nonsense." Sans nearly choked on his mouthful of pancake.

"Some are even planning on hiking up the mountain to seek them out. I've never heard such insanity in all my life. Now listen, the both of you: I don't want either of you going up that mountain, mythical beasts or not. I can't have the people of Ebott thinking you're caught up in the frenzy of hunting for them too. And even if they did exist, which they most certainly do not, I wouldn't want you interacting with such creatures."

"uh-huh. i gotcha."

"If these people have time to be chasing shadows, then they have plenty to spare on actually putting effort into revitalizing the town instead of always complaining about what we don't have."

"yup, what a complete waste of valuable time…"

"You have little room to speak, Sans. You lollygag about just as much as the rest of the townspeople these days."

"tell that to the stack of cash i earned this week working my butt off around town." He rebutted, stabbing his fork into the sausage on his plate.

"Yes, you really raked it in this week, you think. If you were living on your own, that amount wouldn't keep you afloat in the slightest."

"well, from the sound of your tone, it sounds like you really want me to leave and never come back. maybe i should."

Sans had tried moving out directly after he had gotten expelled, but he wouldn't leave without his brother and Papyrus remained firm on staying. Papyrus had created a stalemate; he couldn't leave until things either got better between him and Gaster, or Sans decided to go without his brother. Sans didn't see either happening anytime soon.

"Was that supposed to be a threat? If so, it was entirely ineffective."

"PLEASE, DON'T FIGHT YOU TWO. CAN'T WE HAVE A NICE BREAKFAST TOGETHER LIKE WE USED TO?"

"No, Papyrus, I don't think that's possible anymore. Your brother, despite being the older of the two of you, can't seem to be a mature adult for longer than two minutes and keep his temper in check."

Sans wanted so badly to retaliate, but he held his tongue once again. He stood up from his seat, the chair scraping against the hardwood floor as he did so. His meal was left unfinished, he mentally noted, but he had lost his appetite anyway.

Just as yesterday, he made his way towards the front door.

"And just where do you think you're going? I haven't finished speaking!"

He remembered what Toriel had told him to say.

"i'm sorry, but i don't feel ready to talk yet."

He reached for the doorknob and Gaster rose up from his own seat. He swiftly paced over to Sans, and in his haste in preventing him from leaving, roughly grabbed his arm.

Sans screamed.

His yowl of pure pain snapped Gaster out of his anger, but it was too late – the damage had been done. His son spun around to look at him, large mismatched eyes moist and filled with confusion and betrayal, then mistrust and anger.

"I-I'm so sorry! I… I didn't mean to, Sans! You have to believe me, I would never-" But he had. "…Let me see it."

Sans instinctively wrenched himself away from him, cradling his arm.

"SANS, PLEASE DON'T GO! FATHER SHOULDN'T HAVE GRABBED YOU SO SUDDENLY, BUT IT WAS AN ACCIDENT! HE DIDN'T MEAN TO HURT YOU!"

Accident.

Accident. Accident. Accident.

Everything was always an accident when he and Gaster were involved. Their entire relationship now had been reduced to one long continuous stream of accidents.

And he just couldn't take it anymore.

Sans turned his back on him and ran out the door as fast as his ligs would carry him, hearing Gaster and Papyrus yell for him behind, but he didn't dare stop or even slow down. He wasn't even sure where he was going, anywhere that wasn't back there.

He found himself going exactly where his father had told him not to go just minutes earlier: Mount Ebott. He wondered if his body was subconsciously spiting Gaster now. He continued running until his legs nearly gave out, stopping at another clearing – a picturesque woodland area.

He sat himself down on a conveniently placed large boulder nearby to catch his breath, wanting to bawl his heart out from the pain enflared in his arm.

Gaster had grabbed him.

He had never done that before. But he just had to grab his burnt arms, didn't he? He was one of the few people that held knowledge of his burns, and he had just unconsciously used his injury against him.

This was it. Nothing between him and Gaster was ever going to get any better.

He heard rustling in the area nearby, just like yesterday evening. Curiosity once again taking presedence over pain, he crept closer towards the sounds to see what he would find making them. Over by a thicket of berry bushes, he found the noisemaker.

It was her again.

She looked exactly the same as yesterday, the only difference being the leather bag she wore over her shoulder. She seemed to be holding a glass container of some sort, picking berries from the bushes and dropping them in, letting out a soft happy-sounding hum as she did so.

Would she run away again if she saw him?

Before he could ponder too much on this, his mouth started running ahead of him.

"hey, it's, uh, me again." He called out to her.

She stiffened, turning her head around slowly to peer at him. He smiled awkwardly and raised one hand up, gradually, since the last time he moved too quickly she didn't respond well. The wraith stared at him for an extended period of time, wordless, before turning her attention back to the berry bush.

Her posture wasn't anywhere near as relaxed as it was before he revealed himself and she had stopped humming.

"i'm sorry about suddenly, you know… grabbing you yesterday. i just didn't want you to fall in the river."

"…"

"so, do you come here often…?" He was grasping at straws.

"…"

"do you have a name? i can just call you 'ghoulie' if you won't tell me."

"…"

"do you… understand a word i'm saying? at all?"

"…"

To his surprise, she actually turned around to face him, studying him intently before giving a small nod.

"…you do understand? what I've been saying? everything?"

Another nod.

"then why aren't you talking to me? did i offend you or something?"

"…"

"ugh, fine. be that way." He groaned, spinning on his heel and then sitting down on the ground right there, crossing his arms with a huff and his back turned to her.

A few more moments of silence passed, when suddenly he heard a tiny voice,

"...…Scary."

"…huh?"

"…Scary."

"sorry, i didn't catch that?"

"Scary. You're… scary."

She spoke in the same manner as someone that had gone an extended amount of time without using their voice; hesitant, soft and unsure of their words. Putting that thought to the side, he focused more on her words themselves.

"scary? me?" He pointed to himself, dumbfounded.

Yet another nod.

Sans stared at her, probably slackjawed as he thought,

"i must be pretty dang ugly if a monster thinks i'm scary…"

So, he decided to question her further,

"what is it about me that makes me seem scary to you?"

"…I …don't know you."

Well, if that really was the only reason why she was afraid of him, they could easily fix that, he thought.

He turned around and stood up, stepping over to her until he was towering over the girl.

She was petrified to the spot.

"you're right, you don't know me. but you will soon. and do you know why?"

He was trying to be funny, leaning downwards until their noses were nearly touching, and whispered,

"because we're going to be best friends you and i."

Sans shouldn't have been surprised when she let out a startled shriek, but he was, and he was startled even further when something collided painfully against his cheek with a loud smack – her hair?

A section of her tendril-like hair was raised unnaturally in the air, much like an octopus's tentacle ready to strike again. But the expression on her face said that she hadn't meant to do that at all, seeming almost sympathetic but still overrode with fear.

Before he could even begin to apologize for making things worse, he was suddenly violently shoved onto the ground landing on his behind. A third figure had intercepted his path to the girl – it was another wraith.

This one was redheaded and had eyes the color of blood. She was glaring down at him almost murderously, the green robe she was wearing fluttering around her as the wind shifted ominously around her. She bent downwards, her face hovering over his.

"Stay. Away. From. My. SISTER!"

Her face suddenly changed shape, looking far less like a woman in cosplay and more like the very terrifying creatures of legend they had been described as. The smaller and timid wraith clung to the other wraith now identified as her sister and quivered. The green clothed one was just about to pounce and most certainly put an end to his life when something stopped her,

"SANS! WHERE ARE YOU?! SAAAAAAANS?!"

Papyrus was looking for him somewhere in the distance. Sans turned towards the direction he heard his voice, but when he turned back to the wraiths, they were both backing away from him and the area entirely, clinging to each other as if they were one another's lifeline. The blue eyed shadow had her head tucked into the other's shoulder while the redheaded one scowled at him.

 camita sora mia

ii sama dite doche

miketa amia

ideta asomarita

ii tento mia dora

ii sama vida doche

ii seta madora

iria ia dileto

 This other wraith's voice was higher and stronger in tone and volume. The trees around the two, spaced out considerably suddenly began to huddle together, creating a massive shadow with their foliage that stretched several yards wide. The two then stepped backwards into the created shade and faded from view, the last thing Sans saw being her red eyes piercing through the darkness before they too faded out.

"SANS! WHAT ARE YOU DOING OVER THERE ON THE GROUND? ARE YOU ALRIGHT? YOU'RE NOT HURT, ARE YOU?!"

Papyrus rushed to his side moments later, apparently not having seen anything to do with the shadow monsters. He had shown up just in time, too.

Sans wanted to answer that he was alright, but he somehow found himself laughing instead.

"SANS, WHAT'S GOING ON? WHY- WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING? YOU'RE BEGINNING TO SCARE ME…"

Sans was scared too. Scared and excited all at once. He had never felt anything like it. He then flopped on his back in his hysterics, tears nearly streaming down his face as he laughed, clutching his stomach.

Later, when he thought about why he might have laughed so hard, instead of believing it to have been a delayed reaction to all the tension he had felt in that perilous moment and his body had released it by laughing it off, he concluded it was because, even though that other wraith had been ready to kill him where he stood…

He still wanted to meet that softspoken monster girl again.

[freeselfeducation]

& this goes back to the BODY:  <----- use the language until it’s DAMPENED (my body is a trigger, shit) and where do you first learn about the BODY?

The Church : it’s sacred & a gift

Parents : a gift to the one you marry

The school : personal space

The Belief : after trauma to the Body, there’s only one way to make it sacred again

RTI is Response To Intervention 

✔️✔️🔥 : Left for ME to #FIND

This is how my mind unWINDs by recalling the past & trusting self that none of their bullshhhIT can last, it’s in the PAST so the lessons they cast, I’m granted access and here’s everyone’s HALL PASS

An Entrance Slip & an Exit Slip

ES es is the sound sssss

gonna put Sarah Sanders down for the way she lies, a permanent frown, the focus is morality, trust yo’self that you’ll never drOWn

let go of the ways that hurt worse

stay the course, emotions 101, thought works

ED IT &  be delivered from it

Elevate Difference Delineate Ignorance

...now create it, let’s begin...

THE PAST [thoughts caught]

When a student (or any person) is struggling options do exist IF willing to LEARN about what deep down motivates them?  Know your JOB...

ED flashback  a student is meant to learn, make mistakes, ask questions & get everything they CAN before it’s over. That time to be wrong & to be “happy,” more like secure. 

The greatest benefit a parent or teacher can provide to create LIFELONG LEARNERS, those rare firecrackers who pop when a new idea hits, as if it entered their heads, made contact with the appropriate thinking that already existed & with that spark, a wild inferno can grow and that’s the point where we forgot that spark!  From the very smallest, something very grand or very dangerous can develop & you must GO THROUGH that fire, feel it’s char, taste its rage.  

Energy cannot be created nor destroyed so the impact that got me here needs its polar opposite & that’s sights, sounds, physical touches, repeated battering, voices that don’t stop yet at the same time aren’t saying anything to HELP, and in some cases, with conscious harm.  Let’s sound the alarms!!   This is the first time connecting two thoughts that have roamed freely and never meeting -- consciousness & alarms -- with the fact on the street, this was the first sound that alerted me to a change. 

I’d do what I’d usually do when I hear an ambulance, or cop car, a firetruck, who knows, you gotta look, but when I turned OUCH & then whoosh, and crack, snap, rattle and OUUUUCH.  Then I learned when I heard that sound to not do what I’ve done since a very small girl, being told to pay attention when you hear this!  Look up & get your wits about ya, to get outta the way!  To pray (for those in need & for those who are going to help) 

 THE SELF : physical, emotional. mental. sexual & the #1 thing that determines a happy life or one met with daily suffering : independence & beyond

When you have the ability to support yourself (& family) & not fear where you’ll sleep, what you’ll eat & drink for the next days, weeks, safety being the #1 factor for us to work hard (support families or pets), stay true (not just for social media shaming) & most of all TAKE PRIDE in WHO WE ARE & make that matter most

When standards slide, it si 100% certain that most will take advantage & the ones who are “above that” look the other way, so a new type of self-education that I’m demanding after a series of events that connected ABUSES between home/school that we all experience...I just got to see behind-the-scenes of MAJOR HYPOCRISY and it changed me. 

In these posts, this DISorder of words, thoughts & not having control of my body is new experience & don’t just appear out of nowhere.  A series of events had to happen for this to happen, but the story about me, it’s those that let IT happen over & over and also those who PRESED in with consciousness.  

Having a self-DOubt never felt before how shown me what you MUST DO & NOT DO post tragedy, whatever the trauma is & I will be sharing some of the tricks & strategies to help build your ability to self-education, only after TRAUMA & in the ways that relate to primary age kids since we must ACCEPT there are differences in intelligence that gives people an edge. 

It’s taking a long time to figure out a format that will EFFECTIVELY help manage racing thoughts that are triggers, and have been masked in every & all ways based on others’ opinions, assumption & flat out selfishness & ability to ever see another person before self & THIS is the enemy that promoted the creation of this blog.  To feel this strongly to do this (for me, someone who has not embraced tech for many many reasons, but most of all, I prefer the “real-world” and my attentions remains in the “real-world” but I needed a way to stay connected after multiple assaults & a physical injury & mental diagnosis (PTSD) that I can finally say, “thanks” to.  

The reason for that is if it’s genuine, the feeling is REAL, successful movement through the acute stages have been competed & now you get to restructure, re-build that life & with knowledge of the past & now, I can say this with enthusiasm, but it wasn’t automatic & can’t be done with “a thought” or “repeated effort” or even “time,” this being the solution but only because it’s forgotten, right?  The body remembers 100%.  What it takes to end trauma is making the BEST of “your WORST” and the first step are in the details... 

FBA (Functional Behavior Analysis) is the prompting event:  

The prompting event is the moment “behavior” or “thoughts” or a “feeling” appear that create emotion (good or bad) with a focus on the undesirable ones.  To say “negative” means a negative & the idea is to be positive or neutral in words since we’re describing behaviors, not the student (where I learned to track, assess, recommend, monitor, adapt, reflect, conclude, repeat) since I will never accept that a student is the problem until all avenues are exhausted since the opinion to GIVE UP, LABEL, assume is “low” or give a “name to,” let’s say weird, these acts done without EFFORT or THOUGHT.  It’s become normal.  Violence.  Already dripping with humiliation from individuals who could so easily lie.  Don’t you want to know the effect of your lies?  

EXPOSING MYSELF in the safest way I know how--through books, language, words & imagery since their PRACTICE is to reward for SILENCE & ACCEPTANCE of a belief that is simply not possible to stay IN ME.

The word was Weird this being the trigger to go back to all the ways one is mentally abused, summed up in one word, so can it be erased & destroyed with one word, too?

Why did FBA create triggers?

A :  it was a waste of time to ever have to write...

AA :  Absolute Answer ∆ it’s paperwork that is done but HAS NO MEANING

other examples of paperwork : yes yes yes yes yes yes, omg

Children Crying from self-harm & wanting friends & using absolutes (e.g. NEVER, ALWAYS) that linger on an ECHO--ECHOO--ECHOOO...the same exact words as this child, made from a child that is in an adult body.  Now it’s getting interesting.  Crying & DOING harm in the same ways -->-->-->--> this triggered the ACT of discrimination of being given NO classroom & made to LEARN in settings that guarantees TEACHING is a waste of time.  Not really fair, see.  You can’t just shuffle these kids around when a perfectly suitable space is available & that’s where I ask for motivation?

Why do such a deceitful thing? 

I simply did not know that IT takes TIME to know why people do what they do.  Now that I know I can see that I survivED, but I also can’t NOT share what I learned from this experience since it something CHANGES LIFE as you know it, at the very least, you reflect a little 

Dedicated to the master of self-education : TY 🤗