#you absolute waste of an AO3 account

[sheliesshattered]

I have nearly 50 fanfics between my two AO3 pseuds, and the first comment I’ve gotten on any of them in more than 5 months is some fuckwit complaining that I used ‘creator chose not to use archive warnings’ on This Isn’t A Ghost Story instead of tagging for the specific trauma at the center of the mystery. the trauma that, had I tagged for it, would have ruined the entire mystery, rather than letting the reader piece it together for themself.

you wanna know why fandom is dying? this fucking bullshit is why fandom is dying.

fuck that person, fuck all the abusers of fandom who read thousands and thousands of words of free fanfic and even can’t be bothered to leave a single comment saying they liked it, and fuck the toxic cesspool the Doctor Who fandom has become.

fuck all of it. I’m fucking done.

[egcdeath]

clean sheet

pairing: joel miller x reader 

summary: nothing stirs the pot like your ex-husband, gossipy soccer moms, and a weekend-long soccer tournament. (part two of spectator sport)

word count: 7.7k

warnings: canon divergent: no apocalypse, implied past emotional abuse, jealousy/misunderstanding, kinda angsty in the beginning but verrrry fluffy at the end, insecurities, there was only one bed, mutual pining, sarah and chloe being menaces as usual

author’s note: this past week has been extremely rough. like, ao3 author’s note apologizing for being gone rough, so i’m just as surprised as you are that i was able to write 7,000 words of a part two to spectator sport. enjoy!

 part 3 / series masterlist

Tournament season was nothing short of an absolute pain in the ass. It was a pain in the ass when you were married and able to evenly split your responsibilities, and it’s even more of a pain in the ass now that your ex-husband has decided to participate minimally in all soccer related ventures. 

To be completely honest, it seemed like it wasn’t just soccer ventures your ex wasn’t too enthused to partake in, as Nathan had ditched most of his fatherly duties whenever a new, younger girlfriend was in the picture. But that was neither here nor there.

Despite Nathan taking Chloe to her past few games this season—you were completely swamped with work and you had practically gotten on your knees and begged for him to take her to them—he didn’t seem to have any interest in assisting you with tournaments. 

That was fine and good. You knew about the events far enough in advance to move some meetings around, block off some time, and cross your fingers and hope that nothing came up unexpectedly in the days prior to your game. Although, what you couldn’t account for was your car completely breaking down on your way back from a bagel shop the morning before you were meant to be on the road for the next three hours. 

But alas, the universe had its way of kicking you when you were already down, leaving you biting back tears in the passenger seat of a tow truck as you attempted to figure out a Plan B.

“Please, Nathaniel,” you pleaded over the phone, pacing back and forth in your bedroom as you tried your absolute best to hold the last bits of your composure together. 

“I’ve been at her last three games,” it was impossible to miss the sneer in his voice as if his own daughter was the biggest burden in the world. “And where have you been? It’s practically been a month.”

“Where have I been?” you laughed out of anger and at the absurdity of his words. You knew that he knew for a fact that you’d been drowning in work. “Nathaniel. You know how my work has been. Please just do this one thing for your child. It’s the fucking weekend. It’s not like you’re doing anything else.”

“It’s always work with you. You know, this is why I couldn’t be with you anymore. You were always so selfish with your time and inconsiderate with mine,” he sighed dismissively. “And for the record, Claire and I have a reservation tonight. So I am doing something else.”

It was staggering how minimized and powerless he made you feel after every interaction despite how little he actually was in your life. Every time you interacted with the man you thanked whatever forces out there that you somehow found it in yourself to leave. 

You huffed and blinked away tears, hugging yourself to attempt to bring yourself some sort of comfort. After signing the papers, you told yourself you would never waste one single tear on the man again. You wouldn’t let a little argument like this change that promise.

“Can I at least borrow your car?” you sounded so meek and desperate, but you were running out of options, and with every passing minute you had less and less options.

Instead of responding, Nathan simply laughed at you before ending the call. Humiliated didn’t even begin to cover how you felt about the whole situation. 

You angrily wiped away the hot tears that had slipped down your face without your permission and sighed as you evaluated what options you had left. You could take an Uber, but it would be ridiculously expensive. You could rent a car, but Chloe was bound to get stains and dirt tracked throughout the vehicle. Anything else was far too short notice. 

You flopped down onto your bed and screamed into your pillow. The stress from your overfilled work week combined with an extremely inconvenient situation was taking its toll on you, but you needed to figure something out. 

Maybe you could carpool with someone. Although, you weren’t sure who was still in town, as most of the families liked to leave at the ass crack of dawn. If that wasn’t enough, you weren’t exactly sure you wanted to sit in a small contained space with some of those families for a prolonged period of time. 

Maybe you could ‘borrow’ Nathan’s car regardless of what he said. You were sure his new girlfriend had a car–if she was even old enough to drive one–and they could certainly take that car to their ever-important reservation tonight. Although, maybe getting a grand theft auto charge in order to make it to a soccer tournament wasn't your greatest idea.

You were deep in the eye of a brainstorm when a soft little knock rapped against your door, seconds before Chloe peeked her head in. 

“Hi mom,” she greeted, completely unaware of the extent of your conundrum. “Sarah can’t find her cleats and wanted to know if she could borrow one of mine. Where do you keep my old ones?” 

Joel.

Oh shit, Joel.

Joel who you’d accidentally ghosted after the promise of a date. With work and ex-spousal drama, you hadn’t even had a moment to think about the date. A knot tied in your stomach as you thought about how you’d treated him. He probably thought you were icing him out on purpose. 

“They should be downstairs in the front closet under the coats,” you informed her. “You almost ready to go?”

“What does it look like?” she retorted sassily, doing a little spin for you to show off her full soccer attire. 

“Alright,” you chuckled, trying to keep it together for just a while longer. “Go find those cleats.”

With that, she was off, and you were alone with just one option. 

You dialed the number that you’d only texted once, and bit your lip as the phone rang out. The knot in your stomach tied and untied with each ring of the phone, nausea rattling you as you thought about all the ways he could answer. He’d probably be pissed that you were only reaching out to him now, only when you needed something from him. He’d probably tell you off, just like Nathan, and laugh at you over the phone over the mere prospect of hitching a ride with him.

After three rings, Joel finally picked up, saying your name aloud, as if he was genuinely surprised to be hearing from you. 

“Joel, I’m so sorry,” you took a deep breath and attempted to hold back the wave of emotions coming over you. This stupid stressful morning. This stupid stressful month. And stupid you for leaving a good man waiting for you. A good man who was probably moments away from becoming a bad man, like every other one that seemed to appear in your life.

“My car broke down this morning and I don’t have any other way to get to the tournament. Is there any way we can carpool? I’ll literally pay you to take us. I’ll drive Sarah to school for the rest of the school year. Hell, I’ll take her to games too. Just… please.” It felt like you were talking a million miles a minute. 

“Hey, take a breath,” he said, clearly picking up on the frantic energy you were radiating through the phone. “We’re heading out in about twenty minutes. We’ll swing by your place. And don’t worry about all that other stuff, okay? Just take a big breath. I’ll see you soon.”

You were flooded with relief as you spoke your gratitude and hung up. It almost felt odd to not have someone go off on you for waiting so last minute to reach out for help, or for not reaching out to them after you said that you would. You were puzzled, and not completely sure what you did to deserve someone like Joel in your life, but you were grateful to have him regardless. Especially now that he was coming to save the day. 

Sure enough, around twenty minutes later, a pickup truck arrived in front of your house, and Chloe was sprinting to go sit with her friend in the backseat, still overjoyed from the news that she would be traveling with her friend. 

Timidly, you entered the car, still anticipating a stern lecture or even a scolding for being a shitty mom, and an even worse potential partner. “I really can’t thank you enough for this, Joel,” you expressed before he had the chance to speak, hoping that if you expressed your gratitude before he had the chance to yell at you, the blow would be lessened. You kept your eyes down as you sat down and set your overnight bag in front of you. 

“Of course. You know, I still owe you a favor after that dinner fiasco,” he glanced over at you and smiled, and some of that fear you had been holding onto began to melt away. Although, you blanched at the mention of the date that you were meant to go on, but hadn’t had the chance to do so. Yet, there didn’t seem to be any malice behind Joel’s words. 

“I guess we’re even?” you offered, looking over at the man to attempt to read him as he slung his arm around the back of the headrest and looked through the rearview mirror as he pulled out. 

“Yeah,” he said shortly, almost… dejectedly? Maybe you were reading into it too much. After all, his attention was split between you and getting out of your driveway safely. 

Regardless of what anyone was feeling, your journey began with the girls in the back chatting amongst themselves and a slightly weighted silence between the two of you in the front while the sound of radio filled in for the lack of conversation between you and Joel.

You spent the majority of the ride looking out your window, deep in thought. You tried not to let Nathan get under your skin all that often, but maybe he was right about the way you spent your time. You’d practically thrown away your shot at any relationship with the man next to you, simply because you were too busy and forgot about a promise you’d made. 

You tried to focus on the excited chatter in the seat behind you, and less on the venomous words Nathan had given you over the years, but it was a difficult task. Paired with the fact that you were still waiting for the shoe to drop and Joel to go off on you, it wasn’t the most pleasant time.

After about an hour of driving (and in your case, brooding), you had to make a stop at the gas station, as the truck was running low on fuel. You reached for your wallet and grabbed a twenty dollar bill, then passed it back to the girls behind you. “Go get some snacks for us?” 

“Of course!” Chloe cheered, hopping out of the car and racing Sarah into the entrance of the gas station.

Joel was definitely going to go off on you now that the kids were gone. You held your breath as you got out of the car, leaning against the hood of the vehicle as Joel stood by the pump, his eyes fixed on his vehicle.

“I can’t tell you just how sorry I am. About not reaching out to you to go out sometime, and for having to ask you so last minute to take us to the tournament. I’ve just been absolutely swamped with work, and Natha-“

“You’re fine,” Joel cut you off as he acknowledged your apology, keeping his gaze trained on the car. Here it comes. “You don’t need to apologize. Sometimes life just throws a bunch of shit at us at once.”

You nodded in agreement, your breathing picking up as you waited for the condescension or lecture to begin. Yet… it never came. You weren’t sure if he was as upset as you suspected, but Joel was certainly feeling more than he was willing to let on. The lack of eye contact and his slightly off responses told you that much. 

“Is everything okay?” you finally asked, trailing off. “You’ve barely said a word all trip.”

“Everything is fine. I’m just tired,” he rubbed his forehead with his hand. 

“Well, if you’re tired, I can drive us the rest of the way over and you can sleep. That way you’ll be rested for the game,” you offered, taking a daring step towards him, and setting your hand on his bicep—a peace treaty of sorts. And maybe a hint that you were still interested in whatever sparks had been evident before. 

Joel immediately stiffened under your touch, and subtly rejected the motion. He glanced over at you for just a moment before looking back down at the gas pump and shut his eyes. “That’d be great. I’m really exhausted.”

While you could believe that maybe Joel was just tired, there had to be more to the story. The way he rejected your subtle touch and the way he just couldn’t seem to meet your eyes told you that much. Perhaps you underestimated just how hurt he was by you not making plans with him, although it wasn’t like he’d reached out to you to set something up. In fact, the last time you heard from him was the night before the girls’ game following their team dinner.

“Of course. Go ahead and get back in the car, I can take everything from here.”

The rest of the ride wasn’t too long, but you were happy to contribute after asking for such a last minute favor. You drove straight to the grounds that the team was playing on that afternoon, as you were already pushing it on time, and certainly did not have time to go check into your hotel yet.

Your kids jogged off to greet their team and warm up with them, leaving you alone with Joel once again as you grabbed fold-out chairs from the back of his truck. 

“You feeling any better now after sleeping?” you asked, turning to look at him and inspect his face for any suspicious expressions.

“Yeah, definitely,” he affirmed, but his words didn’t exactly match what it was you had observed. He closed his trunk and began to walk away, and you followed after him, feeling a bit like a lost puppy.

“Joel, really. You can tell me what’s wrong,” you practically pleaded, part of you still waiting for the moment he would tell you off.

“I already told you,” his tone was defensive, and when he turned back to look at you, the agitation was clearly painted on his face. “Nothing is wrong.”

You were taken aback, but understood that you had crossed some sort of boundary in your continuous pressing of what was wrong. You felt more like a kicked puppy than a lost one as you walked out to the fields behind Joel, setting your chair up close to him, but with a little more distance between the two of you than what you would have preferred. 

You didn’t talk much during the game, outside of cheering for your daughters and momentarily celebrating when one of them pulled something impressive off. 

Although you didn’t interact much, it still felt nice to be back at a game after being gone for the past few weeks. And honestly, it felt even more nice to be back in Joel’s presence after those weeks, even if it was clear that something had shifted between the two of you. 

When the second game began, you were surprised to come back from your short leg-stretch walk to find another chair placed next to Joel’s—and a woman happily chatting his ear off.

A pang of jealousy struck your gut as you observed the two of them. It was no secret that most of the moms (and some of the dads) on the team (and other teams) saw the same things in Joel that you did. But you had absolutely no right to feel jealous, considering the way you’d basically led him on, and you had absolutely no reason to believe that there was anything romantic going on between them.

But you felt unwell anyway. 

You urged yourself not to look at them for too long, instead focusing on the game in front of you, but the sounds of their voices and the way their conversation easily flowed was far too distracting. Just the rotten cherry on top of an already shitty day. 

You felt ridiculous and childish sitting there with jealousy burning deeply in your stomach as you mentally ran through all of the things you could have done differently. Maybe if you’d texted Joel the night of your dinner and found a day where you both weren’t busy to go out together, or if you’d just said no to taking on a few extra hours, you’d be the one giggling and playing with your hair as you chatted up Joel.

It was official: you couldn’t torture yourself with staying one more moment with the two of them. Instead, you shot out of your uncomfortable little chair, and hauled your jealous little ass over to the concession stand. If you couldn’t go back in time and fix all the mistakes you’d made leading up to today, at least you could stuff your face full of peanut M&Ms until you felt better.  

As you focused on tearing the yellow plastic with a little more force than what was necessary, you completely missed Alice—one of the more gossipy mothers on the team—approaching you. 

“Hey babe,” she greeted cheerily. “We haven’t seen you in a few weeks. Where’ve you been?” 

Your mouth was currently filled with candy, so it took you a second to respond. “Work,” you said in between chewing. “I barely had time to breathe, let alone bring Chloe to her games, so I had to basically beg on my knees for a little help from her father. Speaking of which, how was Nathan?”

“Oh,” Alice paused and looked off to the side, a little too guiltily for your liking. “Yeah, he was fine.”

“Are you sure?” you asked, brows furrowed at her strange reaction. 

“Yeah! He was great. It’s just…” she trailed off and offered you an awkward smile. “We thought you two were maybe back together. You know, with the whole co-parenting thing.”

Your eye twitched. So the parents of the team were gossiping and theorizing about your love life. Great. That’s probably what was wrong with Joel—word had gotten back to him that you and Nathan were playing house again. No wonder he was putting such distance between you. 

“Babe,” you tried not to let the annoyance you were experiencing reflect too much into your tone, “why would you tell people we were back together? Bringing your own child to their sports events is not exactly groundbreaking or relationship material.”

You were now gritting your teeth as the irritation really started to sink in. Joel probably didn’t reach out to you for your date since these fucking real housewives you were surrounded by had decided to spread baseless rumors about you from the moment your ex had stepped onto the sideline. 

You were wrong. This was the rotten cherry on top of the absolute dogshit milkshake of a day you’d had. 

“I’m sorry,” Alice didn’t sound as remorseful as you wish she did. You knew that deep down, she was enjoying this little game and would be more than happy to spread this information back to her friends. “I shouldn’t have assumed.”

“It’s fine, the damage is done,” you sighed, shoving a handful of candy in your mouth. 

“Have you seen Joel and Cindy, though? They’re so cute together!”

It was now clearer than ever that Alice was only interacting with you to stir the pot, so you simply put on the best fake smile you could muster and nodded. “Adorable. Now if you don’t mind, I’m gonna go sit back down. I haven’t seen Chloe play in a few weeks, and she was doing so well in the last game, I’m sure she’s doing great now too!”

You didn’t wait for a response before walking off, attempting to suppress all of the feelings you were having with this new information you’d been given. In the three weeks you’d been gone, Alice had convinced the team that you and Nathan were back together, and Joel had already moved on. If you hadn’t cared so much about Chloe’s passions, you would’ve had her quit on the spot. You simply could not handle any more of this soccer parent culture. 

Sitting back down in your seat, you offered Joel an M&M, to which he politely declined. You wondered if there was a way for you to casually explain that you and Nathan were not and would not ever be an item again, but then again, it seemed like with Cindy in the picture, the ship of making anything work with you two had sailed. 

You attempted to focus on your daughter, who unsurprisingly was doing quite well in the game. You were glad that no matter how shitty your day was turning out, your kin was at least having a better day—and having fun doing it.

You simply went through the motions through the rest of the day, squeezing your daughter tight with a hug when all of the games for the day were finished and telling Sarah about how great of a job she did, then falling back into a somewhat uncomfortable silence on your drive to the hotel. 

Checking in had proved to be… a bit of an odd situation. As you pocketed your room keys, Chloe made an odd offer—her and Sarah would share a room while you and Joel would share your own. 

It shouldn’t have surprised you as much as it did when your daughters proposed that you and Joel share a room so that they could have a sleepover, but it caught you off guard regardless. 

You were hesitant for several obvious reasons, but their room was adjoined to yours, and there was a perfectly nice pull-out bed in the sofa, which meant there was absolutely no need to share a bed with Joel. After some consideration and discussion with the man who would be your roommate for the night, you ultimately settled on allowing it. You would take the sofa. Joel would take the bed.

Besides, it’s not like he’d be spending the majority of the night in the room. After a short conversation, he was getting dressed and going off to dinner with Cindy. 

You tried not to feel bad for yourself for too long. You’d already spent the majority of the day feeling bad for yourself, whether it was for the shitty situations you found yourself in, or the way the moms on your team treated your love life like their favorite reality show.

Knocking on the door adjacent to your own, you were happy to see Chloe crack open her door. 

“Hi girls,” you greeted. “What do you say to a pajama party?”

“Yes!” Chloe squealed, swinging her door wide open. Conveniently, they were already dressed the part, and were seemingly ready to wind down after a long day of physical activity. 

After ordering an absurd amount of room service and having nothing short of a feast with your favorite pre-teens, the three of you sat on the floor under a blanket fort you’d constructed as you played Uno with some random network romcom playing in the background. 

It felt like after a long day of holding your breath, you could finally let go of it, winding down with your two favorite children.

“Do you feel like you had a good day today?” you asked, placing a green three on top of the pile of cards. 

“Yeah! I missed having you and my dad together at our games,” Sarah remarked, drawing a card. 

Chloe nodded in agreement, setting down one of her own cards. “You really spice up our games. I think Joel yells a little louder at us when you’re here. He was pretty quiet when dad was bringing me.”

You tried not to let your emotions show on your face too much in front of the children, but it was undeniably sweet that you being around brightened Joel’s light, even now, when things were a little more awkward between the two of you. You simply hummed as you set down your card.

“Yeah, he kept asking me if I knew where you were,” Sarah drew a card then placed the card back down on the pile. “I think he missed you.”

So maybe Joel wasn’t as mad at you as you thought he was. Asking where you were had to be a good sign, right? Maybe it really just boiled down to him thinking you were back together with your ex-husband, and him not wanting to cross any boundaries. 

“I think you’re our good luck charm. Did you see how well we played today?” Chloe asked, discarding a card. “Uno.”

“I think you guys are just good,” you set down a card. “Uno.”

“I dunno, when you were gone we kept losing,” Sarah set down a skip, causing Chloe to exclaim in frustration. 

“Our friendship is over,” Chloe announced to Sarah for what must’ve been the third time that night. 

“Mean it this time?” she teased. 

“I swear!” the pair broke out into giggles as you set down your final card. 

“We need to team up on you! How is it that you keep winning?” Sarah asked, pointing an accusatory finger at you. 

“She’s a dirty cheater,” Chloe tutted. “Just ask her why we don’t play Monopoly anymore. Right, mom?”

“Hey!” you exclaimed. “It was a rough patch. I keep winning Uno because you two keep targeting each other. What happened to team work?”

“No such thing in Uno,” Sarah shrugged. 

You laughed aloud, feeling some of your stress melting away with the motion, “you guys are too funny.”

Chloe yawned and reached for the pile in the middle of your little circle. “You can’t compliment your way out of this, cheater.”

“Ugh, whatever. I didn’t realize I raised such a sore loser.”

“Takes one to know one!” Chloe jeered. 

“Sure,” you chuckled. “Well, I think it's this cheater’s bedtime. Can I help you guys undo the pillow fort?”

The girls agreed, and you helped take down the mess of blankets, chairs, and pillows as they began to wind down and settle into bed.

“Goodnight, girls,” you bid farewell as you approached the adjoining door. “If you need anything, just come on over, okay? Sweet dreams,” you blew kisses to both of them before going back over to your side of the room.

When you made it back to your room, Joel was already in bed, the soft light of the television illuminating his face in the otherwise dark room. The light from the screen and his pajamas were doing him all sorts of favors, making him look like he walked straight out of your domestic fantasy. 

“When did you get back?” you asked as you grabbed your phone charger from your bag and approached the pull-out bed. 

“Like, an hour ago,” he shrugged, leaning back against the headboard. 

“You should’ve come over and played Uno with us,” you suggested, attempting to get cozy in your makeshift bed as you pulled the threadbare hotel blanket over your legs. “We had a little fort and everything.”

“Didn’t wanna intrude on your girls’ night,” he mumbled sleepily, hugging a pillow as he adjusted himself in bed.

“We would’ve been happy to have you,” you muttered, trying your best to relax in the rather uncomfortable makeshift bed.

Joel simply grunted in response, his eyes now shut. You could only assume that sleep set in quickly, and you’d now lost him to dreamland.  

You stared up at the ceiling, unable to fall asleep. Part of you wished that this whole day was just an awful dream, and that you’d wake up the morning after the team dinner at Joel’s house, able to do everything all over again. 

Rolling onto your side, you hoped that the shitty pull-out bed would become even slightly more comfortable, but your hope was to no avail. You sighed softly and closed your eyes, wondering if you started counting sheep, if it’d be any easier to fall asleep.

About fifteen sheep in, Joel’s soft voice calling your name pulled you out of whatever sleepy daze you’d been in. 

“Hey, are you sleeping yet?” he practically whispered. 

“No,” you responded, voice far above a whisper. “The floor would probably be more comfortable than this.”

“I told you you shouldn’t have taken the pull-out bed,” he goaded.

“You wanna get down here and sleep on it for me?”

“No. Well… Would it help you sleep better?”

“Joel,” you huffed.

“I shouldn’t have asked,” you listened as the bedsheets began to rustle.

“No, no, don’t do that. Your body needs an actual bed after all that hard manual labor you do. Lay back down.”

“Not if you can’t fall asleep because of that shitty bed. Trust me, I’ve slept in worse conditions.”

“Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Now I’m going to sleep. Goodnight.”

Joel paused for a second, and you assumed he’d finally given up. Good.

Until he called your name once again. “Come up here and get a good night’s rest.”

“No,” you argued, though your sleepy brain was practically begging you to move to the comfier location. “You need it more than me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

You snickered, “whatever you want it to mean.”

Silence on his end once again. Time to start herding your sheep. 

“Why don’t we just share? There’s probably room for three of me on this bed.”

A bold proposition from a man who got back from a date only a few hours ago. A bold proposition that you were probably a bit too enthusiastic to take. 

“Fine,” you huffed. “Only to get you off my ass.”

Every part of your body was thanking you as you slipped out of the shitty couch-bed and padded over to the empty side of the real bed. Tentatively, you got in bed and under the sheets, making sure to keep yourself on your side and keeping your back facing his.

“Goodnight, Joel.” you finally whispered. 

“Goodnight,” he softly said your name, and you imagined the look on his face. Maybe in a different world, one where you’d gone on a date with him when the offer was on the table, you’d be in bed with him without the argument, with his arm wrapped around your waist as he wrapped you in a warm embrace, or with him hovering above you as you attempted to keep quiet in a hotel filled with guests who were more than willing to speculate about you.

It was nice to have someone in bed with you again. Even if all you had was the heat radiating off of the man next to you, and the sound of his deep breaths as he fell deeper and deeper into sleep. Despite all that had gone wrong in the day, and whatever Joel’s situation was with his date, somehow laying in bed with someone else made you feel at ease.

You didn’t have to count any more sheep to fall asleep that night. 

When you woke up, Joel was already out of bed, pulling on a hat and slipping on his shoes. “Oh good, you’re awake,” he commented as you rubbed the sleep out of your eyes. “Wanna get complimentary breakfast before it goes away?”

You stretched out as you listened to the proposition, wondering if the phantom feeling of an arm around your waist during the night was real or just a dream. “You know me so well.”

Somehow, the tension between the two of you didn’t feel so heavy that morning. Maybe sleeping in bed together had helped to break the ice, or maybe some other variable was at play. Regardless, you were happy to feel like your relationship had gone back to what it had been a month ago, even if Joel really was beginning to form something with Cindy. 

The hotel lobby wasn’t too busy when you and Joel went down. You were certainly grateful, as the fact that you had just rolled out of bed and gone to breakfast was more than obvious to anyone who’d looked at you for more than two seconds. 

You were stirring endless circles into your coffee when Joel sat down across from you, sighing as he leaned back into his chair. 

“Sleep well?” he asked before taking a hearty sip of his own coffee. 

You held back a laugh and exchanged it for the slightest hint of a smile. If only he knew just how well you slept. “I guess,” you admitted. “I always sleep well in hotel beds.”

You were completely uncertain of how to address the bed-sized elephant in the room, or if it was even a good idea to do so. But the lack of coffee in your system and the remnants of sleep clouding your brain had lowered your inhibitions significantly, causing the next words to tumble out of your mouth. 

“Thank you for letting me join you,” you involuntarily held your breath after saying so, too afraid to openly wait for his reaction. 

“Of course,” he hummed, beginning to stab at some of the food on his plate. “I couldn’t just let you break your back on that couch-bed.”

“Well I appreciate it,” you began to pick at some of your own food, the two of you falling into a far more comfortable silence. Obviously something had shifted between the time of the game and now, but you couldn’t quite place it. Since you were already in the mood to address elephants in the room, you had no issue blurting, “How was your date last night?”

“Date?” Joel looked up from his scrambled eggs with a furrowed brow. 

“With Cindy? From the other team?” you took a bite of toast and didn’t back down from the loaded eye contact going on between the two of you.

“Well, it wasn’t a date. Cindy’s married. Happily, I might add. Just catching up with a family friend.”

You were slightly taken aback, but not necessarily in a bad way. Suddenly, you felt silly for all the energy you’d wasted the day prior feeling jealous and bad for yourself, when you didn’t even know the full story.

“Well, what about Nathan? Is he a family friend?” it came out defensive, and you couldn’t particularly blame him for it. Finally some proof that this was what that weird tension had been all about. 

Maybe if your mind was slightly more clear, you’d find it cute that you were both a little jealous over each other. Maybe you really hadn’t thrown away your chance at this thing the way you’d thought you did.  

“No! I told you, I’ve been swamped with work. Like, getting home so late that I only see Chloe in the mornings and when I tuck her into bed, late. She needed to go to her games, and I knew there was only one person I could possibly guilt trip into bringing her. But I would rather marry the actual incarnation of Satan himself before spending another day with her father.”

“Oh,” Joel said quietly, lifting his disposable cup to his lips and seeming rather deep in thought.

“But you thought I was with him this whole time?”

“I guess?”

“And you still invited me into your bed?” you pressed, a hint of amusement in your voice.

“There was nothing inherently romantic or… sexual about that. I just didn’t want you to wake up in pain,” he set down his cup, but continued staring you down.

You shrugged. Solid answer, although you certainly wouldn’t be opposed to either alternative scenarios. 

“But even if there was, it’s only because you deserve better than that man. And from what I’ve seen, pretty much any man is better than him.”

“Including you?” you pressed. 

“What do you think?” the little smirk he was obviously trying to fight only egged you on. 

“I think I agree with you. Except, I don’t love that you just assumed something about my relationship status because one of those human rumor mills told you it. Next time, you wait until you hear it from me, okay?”

“I normally would’ve, I guess I’m just so used to things not working out with me, my brain was just looking for a reason why this wouldn’t work out either.”

“To be fair, not contacting you after saying I’d go out with you is pretty solid grounds for thinking we wouldn’t work out. But at least let me take you on a date before we try to figure out if we’ll work out or not.”

“You still want to go on that date?” Joel asked, sounding more astonished than you would’ve expected. 

“What do you think?” you winked, tossing his words right back at him. 

Just as your exchange began to wrap up, you were joined by two sleepy kids, who most certainly heard part of your conversation about going on a date. You couldn’t even bother with feeling mortified, too high on the knowledge that you had yet another shot with Joel. 

“How was your sleepover?” you asked the girls without missing a beat. 

“Fun. We missed you, though,” Chloe sighed as she buttered up a bagel. 

“Yeah, Uno’s not the same without you,” Sarah added as she began to cut up her pancakes. 

“I’m flattered, girls. We’ll have to have an Uno tournament sometime and get Joel on it too. Mostly so he can witness me beating everyone’s ass at it.”

“Language, mom. And we all know you’re a cheater.”

“Keep telling yourself that, sweetie.”

“I don’t know, I kinda believe it,” Joel teased. 

“Not you too, Joel! You’re supposed to be on my side,” you laughed. 

Your table fell into comfortable conversation for the rest of breakfast before you had to send the girls off to go get ready for their games. You almost wanted to pinch yourself to check if you were still dreaming after waking up in this domestic paradise following the terrible day you’d had yesterday, but even if it was a dream, you weren’t sure you wanted to wake up.

The rest of the tournament went smoothly, with the ice sufficiently broken between you and Joel, and you even joining in on his conversations with Cindy as the three of you sat together. The girls’ team ultimately won, leading to some very happy passengers as you drove back home. As you exited Joel’s car, you gave him a soft kiss on the cheek and a whispered promise of going out with him soon. To think, when you’d started your weekend, you never would have believed it would end in this manner. 

——

“Mom, hurry!” Chloe yelled up the stairs at you, sounding a little more impatient than what you would’ve liked. 

You could understand where she was coming from. Following the end of the soccer season, Joel had been quite busy, and Chloe hadn’t been able to see her closest friend outside of school hours for quite some time. If you were Chloe, you’d probably be anxious to see Sarah too.

Hurrying down the stairs with a newfound sense of urgency, you gave your daughter a little side hug. 

“I’m sorry, sweetie,” you apologized, understanding her urgency a little too well.

“Don’t be sorry. Just be efficient,” she pulled away from you and checked out your clothing. Sure, it was 6 PM and you were already in your pajamas. Sue you for wanting to come back home after a long day at work and put on your softest cat-printed pajama pants. “That’s a good outfit.”

“Oh, thank you. I was actually invited to Paris Fashion Week, but-“

“You can tell me in the car!” she exclaimed as she scurried off, with you following behind the little slippery bastard. 

In the car, Chloe seemed to be acting a little… suspicious. Although, you didn’t pay much mind to it, making small talk on the short drive over to her friend’s house. Her friend whose father you still hadn’t found time to go out with. 

“Oh yeah, being here reminded me that Joel had something to tell you,” Chloe announced as you pulled into their driveway. “Come in with me?”

By now, you were slightly suspicious, but the idea of having some sort of confrontation by Joel about you not following through on your word once again overrode your suspicions of your child. 

As Chloe rang the doorbell, Sarah swung the door open, smiling at her friend, then up at you. 

“Hi, come on in!” she said sweetly, opening the door all the way and leading you inside. 

As you walked in, your eyes caught on a makeshift pillow fort—one that oddly resembled the one you’d helped the girls make during their tournament. Cute.

“My dad’s inside. He wants to talk to you. See you later, bye!” Sarah talked quickly, and even quicker than her speech, she disappeared up the stairs with your daughter.

Something was definitely up.

You approached the fort with trepidation, and slowly pulled up a flap, where you found Joel dressed similarly to you in a loose shirt and plaid pajama pants, comfortably splayed out on his back while he seemed to be playing Candy Crush on his phone. 

“Oh, hey,” you said awkwardly. “The girls said you wanted to talk to me?” 

“Oh, hey,” he parroted back, seeming even more taken aback by your presence as he immediately sat up. “Uh, I actually didn’t know you were coming over?”

Oh.

It was always something with your kids. They knew how to scheme, and they knew how to scheme well.

“That’s fine,” you laughed to yourself about the situation. “I was gonna head out anyway. It was good to see you, and for the record, you clean up pretty well,” you teased, alluding to your similar mid-evening pajamas. 

“Wait!” he said quickly, nearly cutting you off. “Sorry, wait. Don’t go yet. Unless you have somewhere else to be…?”

You shook your head and shrugged. 

“I mean, obviously our kids set us up again, but we also haven’t followed through on that date yet. So maybe we can do it now?”

“Maybe,” you hummed as you sat down next to him on a mountain of pillows. “What would you want to do?” you asked, gently tapping his leg with your fuzzy-sock clad foot. (Chloe didn’t need to know that what was taking you so long was finding these god-forsaken socks.)

“Well, I’ve been wanting to take you out to some snobby, fancy restaurant,” he began. 

“Oh?” you voiced, brows raised. 

“But I don’t really think that’s either of our speeds.”

“Agreed. I don’t know where you’re going with this, but I’m liking it so far.”

“We also probably shouldn’t leave the girls home alone at night,” he continued to think out loud, his soft eyes never leaving your own. You almost felt like you were caught in a trance by them. 

“So what do you suggest we do, Joel?” you asked. 

“Well, we have this wonderful pillow fort already at our disposal. Maybe we can order some food and watch a movie?”

“I think sitting in a pillow fort while eating food and watching a movie is my love language. That sounds lovely.”

You two smiled at each other, and you could hear your heartbeat pound in your ears as a warm feeling filled your chest. It had been far too long since you’d felt any semblance of this feeling.

An abundance of Thai food and an argument over what movie to watch later, you were curled up like a cat beside Joel admiring the look of his face under the lighting of the fairy lights that were hung up throughout the little fort. 

“Ugh, why haven’t we done this sooner?” you asked, lifting your head out of the dip of his shoulder. 

“We’re both too busy,” he murmured, looking away from the television screen to look over at you. 

“I’ll literally take sick time off just to do this again,” you remarked. 

“I think that’s just the Thai food talking.”

“It was fucking amazing.”

“Told you.”

“But it’s not just the Thai food. I really like you a lot, Joel. I like spending time with you. I like talking to you and arguing about whether a shitty romcom or shitty action movie is better. I like doing mundane shit with you, like putting up fairy lights in a fort to enhance our ‘fort experience’. I like cuddling with you. Has anyone ever told you that you’re basically a human furnace? Anyway, I hate the fact that our daughters had to make an elaborate scheme just to get us together. I wanna make more time for you, because you deserve it. But like, only if you also wanna spend more time with me,” you confessed. 

“Of course I want to spend more time with you. And in the spirit of honesty, I really do have the time, sometimes. I guess I just worry that you wouldn’t want to spend your free time with me.”

“Joel, I would sit and watch paint dry on a wall if you were there with me. From the moment you entered my life, you’ve made everything a little better. If I have the time, I’m never gonna say no to being with you.”

He paused for a moment as he seemed to process that information, only coming back with a quiet, “Can I kiss you?”

You grabbed his cheeks and kissed him like no one you’d ever kissed before. It felt like the Fourth of July in your stomach as a moment you felt you’d been waiting for all your life finally came to fruition. 

By the time you pulled away, you were breathless and felt warm all over. You could go out on a limb and say that as far as dates go, this one was pretty successful, and to think, if it wasn’t for your daughters’ intervention, none of this would’ve happened. 

Yeah, you definitely needed to treat them to something.

[2baabbies]

🖤 Knee Socks (Changbin x Reader) 🖤

Crossposted under 2Babbies on Ao3 <3

(decided to crosspost this today for all the changbin fuckers, I hope you like it 🫶🏻)

Pairings: established frenemies changbin x reader, to lovers

Words: 4100

Summary: Changbin stops by uninvited to pick up the jacket you borrowed from him. You are annoyed that he has interrupted your down time on your day off, but maybe he’ll find a way to make it up to you?

(inspired by the Arctic Monkeys song!!)

Humour + Fluff + Smut

afab + fem!reader

CWs: reader and binnie are mean and they swear at each other but they actually looove each other, playful insults are thrown around, picking on your crush to hide your real feelings??, jokes about murderers/getting murdered, gamer girl!reader, changbin projects on reader based on how she’s dressed (but they’re both down bad so it’s fine)

Smut Tags: taunting/teasing, explicit consent because consent is sexy, big dick changbin, changbin sock fetish, slight dom dynamics but reader and bin are both kind of switches in this one, changbin going down on reader, some edging, vaginal fingering, begging, praise, slight degradation, handjob, mutual/guided masturbation, dirty talk, confessions during sex

!!ATTENTION!!

Reposting this fic to other platforms, including as a translation, is expressly prohibited. Do not copy, alter, or claim this fic as your own. Absolutely no permission is given to anyone to post my works, even with credit, and this fic should only appear on Ao3 or Tumblr under my accounts. Reposting is not only plagiarism, but a direct violation of my wishes as the original writer and owner. Please respect writers and don’t steal!

Likes, reblogs, asks and comments are very welcome and appreciated <3

~~~

The fourth phone call in three minutes prompts some concern, so you forfeit your competitive match to give the caller your full attention.

“What’s wrong?”

“What are you doing?” Changbin responds casually.

“I’m trying to rank. Is something wrong?”

“Rank? Christ, are you playing that stupid game again?”

“Felix is two whole levels above me!”

“… So?”

“Felix isn’t even good, he’s not allowed to be two levels higher than me!”

There is a pause on the other end and you think he may have hung up before he speaks.

“So that’s what you’re doing? Wasting your day away on your computer?”

“Why are you complaining? I went out with you and Chan last night. And I don’t have another day off for two weeks, so I have to grind as much as I can today. And fyi, you’re putting me at a disadvantage. I just left a match to answer your stupid call because I thought you were getting murdered or something. That could’ve been a win.”

“You think I would call you if I was getting murdered?”

“Yeah, I think you would. You know why? Because you’re stupid.”

“Hey hey hey, be nice.”

“What do you want? You’re wasting my precious time.”

“You stole my jacket last night, e-girl, I’m here to get it back.”

“I’m not an e-girl- wait, you’re here? Right now?”

“Wasting away in the lobby. Waiting for someone to come and murder me.”

You stand up from your chair and pad out of your room to your intercom. You hang up your phone and shout into the speaker.

“Quit loitering, shithead!”

“Fuck you!” Changbin shouts back.

You unlock your apartment door then buzz him in.

“Doors are unlocked. Your jacket is on the couch. Get your shit and get out.”

You hear him giggle maniacally as he opens the now unlocked lobby door and roll your eyes before returning to your bedroom. You quickly queue for a new match and put your headphones on. You join in immediately and the sound of Changbin entering your apartment is drowned out by the sounds of the game. You think you hear him say something from the other room but you opt to ignore him to maintain your kill streak. The match ends with a win and Changbin startles you as he speaks up beside you.

“You have an addiction, you know that right?”

You pull your headphones down and glare at him.

“Dude! What are you still doing here?”

“Look at this,” He picks up one of the many empty energy drink cans scattered across your desk, “You’re going to have a goddamn heart attack. I told you to lay off these. And your desk is a mess!”

“Shut up! Why are you in here?”

“You left your door unlocked. Not safe. That’s how murderers get in.”

You groan.

“Stop lecturing me! You were two minutes coming up, at most.”

“Yeah, but what if I wasn’t? And what if there was a murderer who was waiting just outside your door? Did you think of that, Ms. Noise-Cancelling-Headphones?”

“But there wasn’t a murderer! You’re just an idiot!”

You spin your chair towards him, clenching your fists in exasperation. He huffs and crosses his arms, his blue jacket slung over his broad shoulders. Suddenly, his eyes widen and he swallows before looking away.

“What the Hell are you wearing?”

You look down at your attire as you sit cross-legged in your gaming chair. You had expected to spend the whole day inside, so your outfit was not exactly guest appropriate but it suited your personal comfort level just fine. You are wearing a thick oversized sweater that drapes over your lap, no pants, topped off with fluffy socks that cover your legs and end just above your knees. The sweater hangs low, doing little to cover your chest and cleavage, and the socks squeeze the plush insides of your thighs. Normally you would have been more embarrassed dressing this way in front of your friend, but Changbin had not been invited into your room and you were still annoyed at him for taking up your personal time.

“What’s wrong? They’re just my pajamas.”

“You sleep in that? Fuck, you really are an e-girl.”

You roll your eyes.

“It’s comfy. And look, the socks have beans.”

You lift your leg to show the bottom of your foot, where cat paws are printed on the socks. He slaps your leg down firmly.

“Don’t do that.”

“Why? There’s beans!”

“I can see that.”

You notice a dark blush dusting his cheeks as you go to lift your leg again. This time he holds your leg down by your thigh to prevent you from lifting it.

“Would you stop that? Have some modesty will you?”

“Modesty? They’re cat socks.”

“And you’re wearing them like some sort of pervert.”

You curl up in your chair and turn back to your pc.

“Lee Know would appreciate them.”

“Yeah, he probably has a catgirl fetish. He’s your target audience.”

You glare softly at him.

“I’m telling him you said that. And there’s no audience. This is just how I dress when I’m alone.”

“Why?”

“Because there’s not supposed to be weird men in my room!”

He blinks in surprise then gapes, offended, at your words.

“I am not a weird man. Take that back.”

“You just called me a pervert. Because of cat socks.”

“I’m sorry! But don’t flash me!”

“Flash you?”

He points at your lap, and this makes you blush. All you see is the gap of bare flesh not covered by your sweater or your socks. You throw your hands up in defeat as he gestures impatiently, and his attention on your thighs suddenly makes you self-conscious. You slap your hands down to cover them.

“There! Happy?”

“Not that! You were- your legs- just don’t spread your legs open when you’re not wearing any clothes, yeah?”

“These are clothes.”

“You’re not wearing pants, and you might not be wearing underwear either.”

You scoff.

“You think I’m not wearing underwear? Seriously?”

“I wouldn’t put it past you.”

“I’m not a freak.”

“Prove it.”

You peer at him.

“That I’m not a freak?”

“That you’re wearing underwear.”

“You’re weird as fuck man.”

You kick your legs up on the desk, knocking a few cans to the floor in the process. Changbin grumbles about your slobbish habits and picks the cans up, then storms out of your room. You wait a moment for him to return and when he does not, curiously get up from your chair to check on him. You spot him in the kitchen from your doorway and pause to watch him. He has his hands braced against the counter and his head lowered as he takes measured breaths. He notices you out of the corner of his eye and looks at you, his jacket is still slung over his shoulder.

“Are you okay?”

“Fine.”

Your eyes flit over his arms, flexing as he grips the counter. Then they roam over his black shirt, tightly fitted over his biceps and abs, then down until they land on the unmistakable bulge in his slacks. You look back up to meet his gaze. He looks wrecked, watching you with heavy eyes as his cheeks burn with shame.

You jump as something falls in your room and hits the floor, bringing you both out of the silent trance you had been in for who knows how long.

“What was that?”

You shrug.

“Murderer. Ghost.”

“Ghost?”

“My apartment’s haunted. That’s why I never have anyone over.”

He laughs with a hint of strain.

“You’re funny.”

“Changbin.”

“I’m sorry, I’ll go, just give me a second,” He rasps.

You do not give him a second. You clear your throat and tug your sweater off in one quick swoop. He stares, wide-eyed, as you toss it to the floor and cross your arms. You stare back at him, wearing nothing but a comfy sports bra, your underwear, and your knee socks. The underwear are lame, not even a cute pair. They are the kind with a little satin bow, pink with faded prints of flowers and bunnies, and a small rip in the frilly waistband. There is nothing sexy or enticing about them.

Changbin’s cock strains against the zipper of his pants, no doubt aching to be released. He exhales slowly as his eyes skim over your body. He audibly swallows then looks away.

“What’s wrong? You’re acting like you’ve never seen a naked woman before. You’re not embarrassed, are you?”

He groans and throws his jacket to the floor then begins crossing the room, tearing his shirt off next in the process. You back up into your room, tripping over another discarded can then falling back on your bed. You sit up just as he enters the doorway. Suddenly, he pauses. He grips the top of the doorframe, giving you a clear view of his muscles at work. You nonchalantly check him out as he pants softly. Then, he points at you.

“You’re the devil, you know that right?”

You laugh and roll your eyes.

“I wasn’t trying to seduce you.”

“Are you trying now?”

You gnaw on your lip and eye his crotch again lazily. Then you shrug.

“Not particularly.”

“Liar.”

“I’m not lying.”

“Look at how you’re dressed.”

“I didn’t dress to impress anyone today, Binnie. Who would even see it? Look at me, why would I wear ratty underwear and a sweaty sports bra if I was trying to look sexy? I’ve been a good girl, you’ve been the bad boy thinking dirty thoughts.”

You emphasize your statement by propping your legs up and spreading them open. He shivers and takes in the clear view of your scantily clad figure.

“y/n,” He says seriously, “I need to know before we go any further if you want this? I’ll stop the moment you ask, I promise, but I want to know before I do something stupid if you even want to keep this going or if you’re just teasing me. Because I… really want you, and I think I’m gonna lose it if we keep this up for much longer.”

You smile and respond softly.

“I trust you, Binnie. I know you would never hurt me. So whatever you want to do, you can do it to me.”

“Right now?”

“Right now.”

“Take your panties off, please.”

You smirk at his hesitant order but obey it. You hook your thumbs into the elastic of your panties and slide them off, taking your time and keeping your legs spread as you complete the process. He watches you greedily, drinking in the sight of you as you pull your bra off next. You discard both garments to the floor carelessly, then dip your thumb in the cuff of your sock and begin pulling it down.

“No. Leave those on.”

You pull your hand away, fluttering your fingers playfully and tilting your head. He finally enters the room, crossing slowly and kicking the can away when he meets it. He stops at the end of the bed. You hold your breath as he stares down at you, and watch as he reaches down to caress your ankle then gently grasps your calf. You let out a shaky breath right before he drags you to the end of the bed by one leg. You gasp as the bottoms of your thighs come flush to his knees.

He meanders fixing your knee socks one at a time. He tugs them up to hug your thighs and runs his thumbs just under the bands to touch the soft skin beneath. You shudder when he looks at you, then grabs your other thigh and squeezes both of them. Your legs quiver as he holds them open and massages underneath your thighs.

“You’ll tell me if you want me to stop, yeah?”

You nod and he shakes his head.

“Say it.”

“I’ll tell you. But I don’t want you to stop. I really don’t want you to stop.”

Changbin falls to the floor on his knees and grips the tops of your socks, he then hikes your legs over his shoulders. You gasp and clench your fingers in the bedsheets when he dives in to lap at your pussy.  You throw your head back and release a pitchy moan as he slowly mouths at you. His fingers curl to stretch the fabric of your socks and your thighs hug his face as he prods you open with his tongue. 

Despite how ruined he looked and how wired he said he felt, he eats you out with an astounding amount of restraint. He rolls his tongue inside between filthy open-mouth kisses, eyes boring into yours as he makes obscenely wet noises. You are not sure if they come from his saliva or your arousal, but it makes your core ache nonetheless. You throw one hand against your forehead and slap the other down on the bed as he continues his tortuous pace.

“Changbin,” You whine, the last part of his name fading off in a squealing moan.

“Mhm,” He peppers a few kisses on the insides of your thighs and nuzzles his cheeks there gently, “What is it, baby?”

“Stop teasing…”

He punctuates his response with a long, deep, kiss right on your clit. You cry out in frustration as he smirks down at you.

“No.”

“Binnie…”

“You teased me, it’s my turn, honey.”

You huff and mewl as he resumes eating you out.

“But I… I didn’t…”

He groans, rumbling your heat as he does so. You buck your hips and moan as he begins picking up the pace, then breaks away. You whimper and glare at him as he licks his lips clean.

“Stop…”

“Do you want me to stop?” He asks breathlessly, “Or do you want me to give in to you?”

“Will you please just fuck me?”

His breath hitches at how soft and desperate your voice sounds. He shakes his head and brings his lips to your heat again.

“Why?” You cry, tears pricking as you feel yourself teetering on the edge of release.

“Shhh, patience, baby. Patience.”

You run your fingers through your hair and arch your back as you grind against his face. He finally grants you relief when he props his elbows on the bed, your thighs still straddle his face, and he pushes three of his fingers between your folds. He buries his face in your heat and fingerfucks you, continuing to do so until you climax. You can only make mindless, breathy, sounds as he stimulates you through your high. You grip the bed sheets and squeeze your thighs together on instinct, mind going blank as pleasure pulses endlessly through your core. He holds your thighs open and continues suckling at your clit, watching you fall apart from his tongue. 

Slowly, he stops and lowers you on the bed. He lets your legs fall to his sides and presses chaste kisses over your thighs and abdomen. Your legs twitch and you let out a wrecked moan as your pussy throbs. His hands roam sweetly over your thighs, petting and soothing you to relax.

“There you go. Good girl. Wasn’t that worth waiting for?”

You make a short, annoyed, sound.

“You’re such a fucking tease.”

He chuckles and stands up, unzipping his slacks and pulling them down. You let your head loll to the side as you watch him. His cock pitches a tent in his boxers, standing proudly as he shucks his pants off. He takes his time rolling the band of his boxers over his length, no doubt enjoying your attention. You bite your lip as he strips himself down then kneels beside you on the bed. You run your hand over his thigh and give a teasing squeeze, then look up for his reaction.

“Mhm.”

“Well?” He murmurs.

“You’re big.”

He snorts, his cock stands proud and drips precum as he moves over you.

“Yeah. It’s a pain.”

“Not for me.”

“Oh? You can take a big dick right now?”

He taps his fingers against your pussy and chuckles when you whine and roll away. You glare over your shoulder as he rubs your hip.

“You’re still too sensitive, baby.”

“And whose fault is that?”

He rolls his eyes.

“My fault for giving you an amazing orgasm, I guess.”

“Yeah, how are you going to get your dick wet now? Stupid.”

His cock jumps and he groans softly at your chiding.

“I’m not.”

“You don’t want to fuck me?”

Your tone is more insecure than you wanted it to be, but there is no way to take it back now. Changbin’s eyes soften and he rolls you over to face him. His hand comes to cup your cheek as you avoid looking at him.

“Is that what I said?”

“No.”

“Right. Do you need to hear me say it?”

You nod shyly and he shoots you a soft smirk.

“I want you. I need you. You’re so beautiful.”

You laugh softly.

“Okay-”

“I want to make you feel loved. I want to take care of you.”

“Oh, so now you want to be romantic? What happened to the teasing and manhandling?”

He rolls his eyes.

“Well, that was when I was hungry, baby. I’m not thinking straight until I’ve had my fill.”

He leans down, hovering his lips over yours.

“Are you thinking straight now?” You murmur.

“No. You’re still making me crazy.”

You giggle and brush your nose against his.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah…”

“What are you gonna do about it?”

“Kiss you?”

You nod timidly. He chuckles as you both close the space between you and share a slow, sweet kiss. You sigh into his mouth as he pets your cheek with his thumb.

“What about now? What do you want me to do?” He asks.

“Fuck me?” 

“Hah… I don’t think you’re ready for that yet, baby.”

“Pretty big talk for a guy that got hard over socks.”

“Well. They are on you.”

“Shut up.”

You kiss again, a bit more heated. Changbin melts into your arms as you pull him closer and he grinds against the crease of your hip. You giggle as he moans and chases the friction a second time.

“Can’t fit your big dick in my pussy? Just gonna hump me like a dog instead?”

He groans and raises his hips up, his cock still hangs and drags over your abdomen.

“You’re so rude. I’m being so sweet to you.”

“Gonna cry about it?”

“Would that turn you on?”

You shrug and give a teasing grind against his thigh. He curses softly and drops his head.

“Don’t make me beg, I might really cry then,” You laugh and he whimpers, “Please?”

“Please what?”

“Touch me.”

You giggle and roll away for a moment to grab lotion from your bedside drawer. When you turn back he shoves his face into the crook of your neck and lets out a shuddery breath onto your chest. You clutch his head close and kiss his forehead as he props his leg over yours. You lube your fingers then slip them between your bodies and around his length. He jerks his hips impatiently as you stroke him slowly.

“y/n…”

“Yes, baby?”

“F-Fuck…”

“You like that?”

“Mh-hm.”

He pants and pulls you closer as you work your hand around him. He curses and throws his head back to gaze up at you. Your touch slows as you watch his lips part in a small whimper.

“Please,” He breathes, “I’m so close.”

“You’ve been such a good boy.”

He nods and cries out in frustration as you slide your hand up his abdomen. You scratch your nails over his chest and gently direct him.

“Wanna come? Go ahead, Binnie. I want to see you touch yourself.”

He makes a choked noise and leans up to brace himself over you.

“That’s not fair,” He takes a shuddery breath, “I helped you.”

“I am helping,” You pout, “What? Are you saying you can’t get off? This isn’t enough for you?”

He looks down as you dip your fingers between your legs and play with your clit. He curses at the soft sounds that escape your lips. He steals another kiss and slowly begins stroking himself over you. You giggle and murmur quiet encouragement against his lips as you lazily pleasure yourself.

“Wanna come, Binnie? Wanna come on my pussy?”

“Y-es…”

He kisses you again, hard, as his movements become faster and uncoordinated. You cup his cheek and allow the fingers between your legs to graze absentmindedly over your sex. He slowly breaks away and gazes into your eyes as he works himself to release. His eyes fall shut and he groans your name.

“Come on, baby. You’re almost there.”

“Fuck,” He gasps.

He jerks himself through his climax, moaning desperately as he spills his cum over you. You watch his expression intently as milky streaks fall over your abdomen and crotch. You glance down and spread the sticky substance between your fingers, then look back at him. He watches you through fluttering lashes and pants into the shared air. Then, he smirks and leans down to share a wet kiss. When you part he kisses your cheek then collapses on top of you, nuzzling your neck.

“I love you.”

You scoff.

“I make you jerk off to me once and that’s all it takes for you to fall in love? You’re pathetic.”

He whines in protest.

“I loved you before that, bitch. And, I’ve jerked off to you many times-”

“Ugh, you freak…” You respond with no animosity.

He laughs breathlessly and heaves a tired sigh. “I mean it. And not just the masturbating part.”

You snort and listen to his labored breath slow then settle into a tranquil rhythm before breaking the silence.

“I know. I love you too. Even if you get turned on by socks.”

Changbin laughs and squishes his face against your cheek. You turn your head and press a loving kiss to the bridge of his nose.

“Shut up.”

“Make me,” You mumble before granting him another kiss.

“Mhm… I will… later.”

You gasp as he goes to pull you closer and gently keep him at an arm’s length.

“Ah, I’m dirty.”

“Yeah, you are.”

You laugh then make a disgusted noise as he pulls your hips together and kisses your neck. You melt into his arms and let him cradle your head to his chest. You sigh and nose sleepily at his shoulder.

“You better clean me up.”

“M’yeah…”

“M’serious…”

“Mh-hm…”

You relax and doze off embracing each other.

You wake again hours later. No light peeks in from the window, the only thing illuminating your room is your desktop screen. The red numbers of the 24-hour clock beside your bed tell you that it is midnight. You fight your way out from where you are tightly tucked into bed. Changbin’s shirt covers your figure as you sit up then slip out of bed. The shirt falls just above the top of your knee socks, leaving a sliver of skin peeking out. You finally notice Changbin, seated in your gaming chair and just wearing your headphones and his boxers, focused on the game playing in front of him. He has cleaned up the desk and his jacket is folded neatly over the back of the chair. You watch in silence then tiptoe over as the match finishes.

“What are you doing?”

He jumps and throws his hand over his chest as he looks at you.

“y/n!”

“Why are you playing my game?”

“... No reason.”

You take the mouse from him before he can queue and open your profile. He smiles sheepishly when you gape at your stats.

“You brought me up five levels?”

“Did I?”

“I didn’t know you could play.”

“What, you really think Felix leveled up all by himself?”

You blink as you process his words then grin and fall into his lap. You wrap your arms around his shoulders and kiss his cheek.

“Thank youuu.”

“Don’t thank me, just get better so you don’t have to play so much.”

“Hey! It’s not my fault! All my teammates suck.”

“Mhm, that’s what they all say.”

You roll your eyes and rest your head on his chest.

“Still, I appreciate it.”

“Do you?”

“Mhm.”

“Wanna show me how much you appreciate it?”

You smirk.

“Yeah. What do you want me to do?”

His thumb glides down your clothed leg then back up again.

“You don’t have to do anything, baby.”

“I don’t?”

“I’ll just let you have this seat and then I’ll take care of the rest.”

You stand and watch him rise then turn to fall to his knees as you fall back in the chair. He smirks and pushes his shirt up out of the way, then draws your legs over his shoulders.

[corrodedbisexual]

It's just pixels

Steddie | T | ~5.1k | AO3 link

Dumping this incredibly self-indulgent thing as my free space entry for @steddie-week, Day 7. (What a week this was! 🥰)

Featuring: Fluff and Humor, AU - Modern Setting/Video Games/Twitch Streamers/Online Dating, Streamer Steve Harrington, Gaming, Online Romance, Pranks, Banter, Flirting, Chatting & Messaging, Eddie Munson Has a Crush on Steve Harrington, Eddie Munson is a Little Shit, Getting Together, Time Skip, Open Ending, POV Eddie Munson

Famous horror game reviewer Eddie Munson lurks incognito on Twitch out of boredom and comes across BabysitterSupreme's livestream. The guy's playing the new zombie shooter, and he's absolutely terrible at it. His aim is disastrous, his reflexes even worse. He died four times over the span of fifteen minutes, on goddamn Easy mode, and wasted half of his bullets on a measly crawler that’s easily taken out with a machete. And yet… Eddie keeps watching. Because the guy is just so damn cute.

Eddie’s never understood the appeal of gaming livestreams.

Review videos, like the ones he regularly makes, are short, on-point, highlight the best and worst aspects of the game, and help players make a decision whether the game would be worth their money or not. But livestreams?

Like, okay, it kind of makes sense when celebrities do it; their fans would probably watch them read a goddamn phone book. Or people actually involved in the production, they can at least offer some cool commentary on what’s going on, how they designed that particular level and stuff. But who on Earth wastes hours of their life watching— not even speedrun record breakers, not tournaments, but Just Some Guy (Gal) casually playing a game? And not even talking about the game itself half the time but about their cat, or their annoying co-worker, or a goddamn sinus infection they had last week, or— ugh, gag him with a spoon. Why is this a thing? Why do they have millions of viewers and subscribers? What’s the point when instead, you could just spend that time… actually playing?

Eddie would never make his opinions public, obviously, he prefers being civil, ‘cos a bunch of the streamers are rather influential people in the industry and he needs to maintain good working connections. Which is the only reason he actually has a Twitch account.

So… yeah. There’s definitely a rational explanation why Eddie’s spent the past half hour watching goddamn BabysitterSupreme, a streamer with a mere 87 subscribers, playing last year’s hotshot zombie shooter.

He was bored, alright? His computer was taking ages to update, and he found nothing noteworthy on YouTube, so his thumb just automatically went to the next app in the row. And he’s not even sure how this stream ended up on his feed, or why he clicked it in the first place, but fact of the matter is… it’s been 30 minutes, and Eddie’s still here.

The guy’s absolutely terrible at this game. He died four times over the span of fifteen minutes, on goddamn Easy mode, judging by amount of health the zombies ate away before he respawned at save point. He wasted half of his bullets on a measly crawler that’s easily taken out with a machete.

And yet… Eddie’s still watching. And only partly because the whole thing has a ‘train wreck you can’t look away from’ vibes.

He’s cute. He’s really cute, okay? And in the most endearing way, because despite having an objectively handsome face, it’s like he’s not even trying. He seems to genuinely not give a fuck about getting views, there’s no proper lighting setup or an obligatory ‘look I’m such a cool gamer’ background of collectibles behind him; the camera is low-res, like an inbuilt laptop one. The guy looks like he’s just genuinely having fun, despite having disastrous aim and even worse reflexes.

He shrieks like a banshee at every little jumpscare and then laughs at his own overreaction, scrunching up his nose in the most adorable manner.

He’s chewing on a bunch of salty sticks as he plays, occasionally brushing crumbs off his light blue hoodie, and leaving one sticking out of his mouth, half-eaten, when there’s suddenly an intense moment he has to focus on.

He’s got little specks of moles on his cheeks and down his neck. Eddie wonders if there’s more.    

Steve. His name’s Steve.

Read on AO3 | Divider credit

[yallthemwitches]

A Hundred Visions and Revisions

She loves him like this: sleepy, slap happy, sometimes a bit handsy but willing to meet her where she’s at in the moment. It’s the quiet moments like this that keep her going sometimes, knowing that whatever is happening out there will disappear by the end of the day when they can hold each other again.

Rated T, Read below the cut or on AO3 Here!

Like usual, she’s already splayed herself across the couch, too enraptured in her book to notice the portrait hole swing open. Spotting her, he makes a show of staggering across the room, dropping his broom idly to the floor with a groan while soaking in the way her lips twitch behind the page in an attempt to ignore him. Making it around the couch, he gives no preamble and collapses against her with an oof, enjoying her small squeaks of surprise as he nuzzles his face into her clavicle. 

“Practice was bad?” Her eyes settle back on the page and a hand finds its way into his hair, fingering the ends that have been shocked into fractured points by the winter wind. 

“Horrible, awful, downright contemptible.”

“That many adjectives, huh.” 

He grunts, scooting his body down further so his head is cradled into her chest, arms snaking around her sides to find the place where her shirt has gotten untucked to draw circles into skin. It has become a tradition of sorts—she waits for him after practice, holding court in front of the common room fireplace and making herself look too irresistible to not fall into the second he returns. It’s a shame they only have one year of school left to enjoy it. 

 She tries to go back to reading, but he continues to sigh, each more theatrical than the last, fingers starting to tickle and pinch at her waist rather than caress. 

“If you want attention, just say so,” she says behind the book, mouth pressed into a tight line but her eyes sparkling.

“No, no. It’s fine. I’ll just lay here…suffering.”

She snorts, and he presses a victory smile into her skin. “You’re so spoiled.”

“Apparently not spoiled enough to get a little love from my girlfriend in my time of need.” He groans, wiggling his hips against her.

“When are you not in your time of need.” She murmurs, deadpan, but her hand moves to the back of his neck, slowly massaging the muscles that hide just under his tangle of hair. She feels him relax under her ministrations, finally abandoning his ‘woe is me’ act to let his body meld against hers. 

“What are you reading?” He asks after moments of silence, eyes fluttering closed from the rise and fall of her chest. 

“Oh, some book about sex magic. Some absolute nutter muggle wrote it—complete madness but fun to read.”

“Sex Magic you say?”  Suddenly he is wide awake, propping himself up and arching an eyebrow from over the book. She eyes him warily and tries to ignore the fingers that have wasted no time to drift upwards and play with the buttons of her shirt. He swoops down, pressing his lips to her neck. 

“Don’t get so excited, Potter. It’s a load of bunk.”

He hums, already undoing her topmost button and moving to kiss the skin there. 

“I dunno—-maybe we should test it out first…get a first hand account.” He gets another button undone and she makes a noise between a laugh and a moan. 

“I’m not very keen on being topless in the middle of the common room so if you could kindly quit it—-“

“You didn’t seem to mind it the other night,” he quips back and enjoys the view of her skin flushing from her cheeks all the way past where he can see under her uniform. 

“James.”

“Fine,” he whines. He stops his progress on her shirt and gives her exposed sternum one last kiss before settling his head back down, hands moving back to encircle her.

“You’re a tease, Evans. A dirty, rotten siren taking advantage of my poor knackered heart.”

She cradles him against her, letting one hand slide back through his hair while the other caresses his back. She loves him like this: sleepy, slap happy, sometimes a bit handsy but willing to meet her where she’s at in the moment. It’s the quiet moments like this that keep her going sometimes, knowing that whatever is happening out there will disappear by the end of the day when they can hold each other again. 

They lay in a comfortable silence for a while, the fire crackling low beside them. She can feel James’ breath start to steady against her, somehow keeping his grip tight on her despite sleep setting in.

“Hey James?” 

“Hmmm?” He nestles his nose down into her, hands grasping tighter at her waist. 

“Have you thought about it at all?”

“Shagging in the common room? All the time.”

She snorts, shaking him a bit. “No, you git—about Dumbledore’s offer.”

His eyes remain closed but his mouth sinks into a small line against her. 

“Nothing to think about—-I’m all in.”

She fidgets under him and the bottom of his jersey rides up, exposing some of his midriff. Absent-mindedly, she runs her hand over the skin, rubbing anxious circles.

“And your offer from the Canons? That’s a pretty big deal.”

“When the war is over, I can try out again.” 

“And if they don’t let you?”

He props up on his chin, looking up to see her staring off beyond the common room. “Then I’ll look into another profession– like magical artifacts or becoming your indentured servant.”

He expects her to crack a smile at his joke, but her eyes continue to look away, seeing something that feels much bigger than job prospects.

“Lily?”

She shakes her head like trying to dispel smoke. He sits up, swinging her legs so they now rest over his, hips flush together. Taking her cheek in his palm, he forces her to look at him and he sees tears just harboring past the surface. 

“I know it’s silly—but can you tell me the future? The way you see it.” she whispers, curling into him so the top of her head can rest right under his chin, book falling abandoned down onto the floor. She knows he’s no divination master–she’s seen his grades to prove it—but they both know that’s not what she’s asking.

“Well–” 

He stares into the fire, watching as the embers slowly lower and diminish one by one. It’s hard to ignore the feeling of encapsulation–that they are just children needing to concoct stories to make it all worth it. Her fingers play with the bottom of his jersey, anxiously awaiting his turn to spin this night’s fable, probably one of many before the war lets up.

“Well, first and most important, we will still be madly in love—sickenly so.” 

She makes a noise and he can feel a smile break through for the first time that evening. 

“Sickenly you say? Says who?”

“Says everyone who is jealous that they can’t be us. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to you as it is our current reality—obviously.”

“Obviously.” she echoes, before muttering arrogant under her breath. 

“We will fight for the Order, beat out Voldemort, and have an incredible victory shag afterwards—”

She hums against his chest and he can feel some of the warmth coming back to her.

“Who knew it was so simple—have you told Dumbledore this strategy?” She turns her head up to flick his nose and he kisses the tip of hers in return. 

“I did–he was shocked he never thought of it actually–said the last bit was particularly vital…”

She can’t help but laugh. “Sometimes it’s like your head deflated but landed right in the gutter.” 

She continues to look up at him, eyes getting more brilliant as her tension melts.  “Go on then—Voldemort’s miraculously easy defeat, victory shag…ok what else?”

He lowers his lips to her ear and lets them skim against the shell. “We get married.”

Suddenly both of their heartbeats fall into overdrive. He flashes his eyes down to see her cheeks are bubbling with pink, eyes wide and targeted right at him. 

“And what part of the sequence does that occur?” Her voice is barely a whisper and he notices her hands have stalled against him, frozen mid-fiddle with the fabric. 

“Well,” he knows she can feel his heart jumping against her, but he doesn’t care, “I was hoping during the exposition or rising action portion of the plot rather than the conclusion.”

Her eyes are dancing, surely from the fire that continues to drop beads of light into her hair and face. 

“And you don’t think that’s…unwise, seeing we’ve only been dating officially five months.”

His eyes meet hers, now devoid of jest.

“It’s not like being wise has ever been in my wheelhouse anyways.”

She could fight it—tell him it’s a mad idea to be thinking about marriage at a time like this, in a time where every passing day seems less sure than the last. But something about it feels too enticing to pass up—the image of them in a home all their own, sitting just like they are now but more solid and sure of themselves, leaning into the domesticity and adoration of it all because they can. 

 She worries if she ruminates on it too much, it will be painful to let go when the time comes.

“And we won’t bicker?”

“Not anymore than married people do—or we do now I guess I should say.”

“And you will make me breakfast everyday, in bed?” 

“Evans, if you’re my wife I’ll do anything anything you ask of me. My occupation is indentured servant, remember?” He is trying to stay light, but she can tell he means it. 

She wishes she could dream like he can—see beyond the rubbish and focus solely on the parts that can work. It’s simultaneously what she is jealous of and admires in him, the bright side is always where he wants to be. 

“James—” Its a warning: a warning that perhaps he is flying too close to the sun. A warning that perhaps it’s too tempting not to accept it. A warning that at this moment, it might be too much. 

But she doesn't need to say anymore. He pulls her closer to his chest, catching the top of her head under the crook of his chin and locking her there against him. 

“Don’t worry, this isn’t me proposing—just…just dreaming.” He lets the last word hang there, and Lily watches the image of them in their house with their happy life become clouded and technicolor. A fantasy. 

Suddenly, the thought of losing it terrifies her. 

“A good dream—a nice dream.,” She doesn’t know who she is assuring more, herself or him. “Something I want too.”

She feels his body heat rise, hands finding the end strands of her hair and curling his fingers through them. 

“Yeah?” His hope, like most other aspects of him, is contagious.

“Don’t get too excited Potter—there’s a lot that can happ—“

“Shh, Evans,” he says, grabbing her face, hands shaking with unparalleled joy. In his eyes the dream still lingers and she doesn’t want to ever look away.

“Let me kiss you—our dream can wait, but let me kiss you now.” 

[kiwiana-writes]

Kiwiana's Subscriber Shindig

I hit an absolutely wild (to me, anyway) AO3 subscriber milestone overnight, and after lying on the floor for a while about it, I want to CELEBRATE with a ficlet fest for all y'all who are so kind and supportive and just fucking awesome.

So! Feel free to send me:

A location: I absolutely encourage you to go buckwild here, because y'all know I love a challenge. You can also include a (vague) time period as well as a location if you want to, but you absolutely do not have to. (And there's no guarantee that if you don't send a time period it will be modern-day!)

A ship or focus character of your choice

Your username on AO3, if it differs from your tumblr username, so I can gift it to you there once it's written!

A maximum rating if you're not happy for it to go to E. I'm not saying all of them will, but... well, y'all know me, it's always a risk. So if you wouldn't want to read something E-rated, let me know what the highest rating you'd be happy with is.

And in return you get... a ficlet. Honestly, could be anywhere from 300 to 3000 words, depending on where the mood so takes me. 1-3 are required, though; I need something more than "IDK whatever you feel like" (that's what my normal WIP list is for 😅)

Important note the first: the idea here is a jumping-off point rather than a detailed prompt. So something like "FirstPrince at the barbershop" is awesome! "FirstPrince meet-cute at the barbershop where Alex accidentally comes onto Henry and then they hook up" is more detailed than I'm looking for for these (also I already wrote that one, so it'd be a waste of your time.)

Important note the second: if you're submitting your request on anon, you will still need to give me an AO3 username, please—I can only accept one submission per person, to keep it fair and ensure that I can in fact still write other stuff as well. If you don't have an AO3 account, I still have a few kicking around which will get you signed up faster than the current waitlist: you'll just need to DM me your email address :)

Slide on into my ask box with your request! Requests will be open until April 30th 11:59pm UTC and I'll start filling once requests are closed. REQUESTS ARE NOW CLOSED! Thanks, y'all; I can't wait to start writing these.

Love y'all, thanks for being awesome and really forcing me to confront my imposter syndrome lmao ❤️

[tangledinink]

Chapter Thirteen of I'm Sorry, Teenage Mutant What Now? is up! The gang journeys through the Hidden City to investigate the Battle Nexus. They journey through and investigate old memories on the way. Read it on ao3 or below the cut!

[ prev ]

"BARON DRAXUM!"

Everyone in the room winced, including Baron Draxum, who awoke with a start, sitting stark upright and snarling in response as he swayed.

"Jeez, Recruit... Love the enthusiasm, but tone it down a bit, maybe," Lieutenant bit out, rubbing his ears, still reeling from the volume of her wake-up call. Casey flushed just the tiniest bit.

"My apologies, sensei!" She cried, immediately falling into a bow, but privately she thought to herself it worked, didn't it? Nothing else that they had tried had even begun to stir the yokai, who they had found tied up and in an unconscious heap inside his own underground lab. They had arrived expecting to help transport the Hamato children to their main hideout, certain they would be, of course, apprehended neatly by Draxum by now... but evidently this was not the case.

"What in the world happened?" The Lieutenant voiced Casey's own thoughts aloud, holding his hands out exasperatedly. "You said you were going to get the Hamatos."

"Yes, well, things were a bit more complicated than I anticipated..." Draxum hissed, gritting his teeth.

"You said you could handle them on your own! We offered to send you back-up, but you didn't want to wait! Surely four children didn't overpower you--"

"They did not overpower me," Draxum snapped, turning to snarl as he dragged himself back up to his feet. "Some damned witch placed a protection spell on them," he seethed, absolutely bristling. "I can't touch them..." He grit his teeth. "... I will simply have to account for this in the future..."

Lieutenant and Brute seemed somewhat unimpressed, Cassandra noted, glancing at them from the corners of her eyes as the two exchanged looks.

"Yes, well," Lieutenant mused, his hands on his hips. "I'm sure there will be other opportunities to kidnap children in the future. However, the Dark Armor remains our priority. Come on. We've wasted enough time here, and we have a new lead to investigate..."

"Don't worry. You'll get 'em next time," Brute tried to encourage, patting Draxum's shoulders, to which he snarled and batted his hands away, grumbling to himself as he stalked off after them, discussing as they went.

Cassandra sighed softly, rolling her shoulders back and forth a few times before she trailed after her three superiors.

Yes.... The Dark Armor was the priority.

---

The collective shriek of their group was cut off by a loud thud, immediately followed by a chorus of groans. Okay, so, travel by teleportation was... a little disorientating. The fact that most of them currently sucked at staying on their own two damn feet didn't help matters. Some more than others.

"Sorry!" Raph immediately bit out, wriggling from atop the heap, an awkward chuckle escaping him. 

"Raph, my wonderful brother," Leo grit out. "You know I love you dearly. But I'm really gonna need you to stop knocking us all over like bowling pins."

"Well, look, you try walkin' around with a giant tail you ain't used to! It's not as easy as it looks!" He defended, throwing his hands up. "I'm doin' my best over here!"

"Whoa!" Mikey effectively ended their squabble with his gasp, sitting up quickly in order to give a wild gesture. "Guys, look!"

And damn. Whoa was right.

Raph was a New Yorker, so he wasn't easy to impress. He wasn't immediately awed by big, sprawling cityscapes or towering skyscrapers, but this place was... something else. It looked somewhere between an actual city and some sort of mystic ruin, residing as 'neither' and 'both' all at the same time. The buildings themselves seemed to grow from the stone landscape, curving and sliding to match the terrain. Glowing mushrooms, crystals, and occasionally the eyes of massive statues provided brightly colored lighting, leaving the various neon signs and backlit advertisements of the city seeming pale in comparison. Street vendors, kiosks, and tents lined the bustling streets, and each and every creature making up the massive crowds was something completely alien that Raph had never seen nor imagined before. Yokai, he thought to himself. That's what April said they were called.

Rather than sharp, straight lines and confident corners, this place seemed built from jagged outlines and curving bends, looping and winding around itself as if the entire city were hanging on, clinging to itself, holding hands, nestled in between the hulking forms of unmoving stone creatures that Raph was unsure how to categorize. He didn't feel confident saying that they weren't alive after the day they had had, despite their frozen forms and their dead, unseeing eyes.

"This must be the Hidden City," Mikey said, and Leo let out a low whistle as the five of them took in the view.

"Good job, little guy. Knew you could get us here," April hummed, giving the little yellow creature they had rescued a squeeze. His tail wagged wildly in reply, snuggling up in her embrace.

"Alright, now we just gotta get to the Battle Nexus from here," Leo said with a sigh, shifting his weight onto one leg, hand on his hip as he glanced over at the yellow critter. "Any idea where that is?"

The creature chirred in response, nodding excitedly and scrambling down from April's arms in order to lead the way. Leo grinned. 

"Okay, I take back all my earlier doubts and hesitations. Bringing this guy with us was a great idea," Leo declared as the group set off.

Though the acquisition of weapons, all tucked or stowed away in backpacks or belt loops or pockets, had helped a bit, Raph had still been, admittedly, pretty nervous about entering the city, a pool of anxiety swirling around in his gut. Given the day they had had so far, he couldn't help but imagine a hoard of devious yokai dogpiling him and his siblings the moment they set foot into unknown territory. But, to his quiet surprise, no one spared them even a second glance, all seeming far too occupied with their own errands and lives to glance over at their ragtag group.

Somehow, this made Raph feel a bit better. For several reasons. He supposed that, at the very least, they didn't seem to be freaks here.

"Don't worry, Dad, we're on our way," Mikey chirped, and despite his current relief, Raph still couldn't quite understand how his little brother could be so cheerful. Mikey always amazed him with his emotional resilience. Wished he had some of that.

"Eugh, is he even gonna recognize us when we get there?" Leo said with a wince, wrinkling up his face a bit. "We look, uh... a little different than when he last saw us."

"I'm pretty sure he knows, Leo," Donnie remarked. "He's the one who put the bracelets on us in the first place. He knows." 

Raph glanced dimly down at the little golden bracelet still encircling his wrist, the red gem now seeming a bit duller somehow, and he frowned. So this little trinket was mystic all along, huh? Now that he knew, it seemed stupidly obvious. He wondered anxiously if they still worked anymore, or if they were broken forever.

"No wonder he didn't want us to take these things off," Leo muttered, looking over his own, holding his arm up to examine it. "Jeez. I can't believe he kept this a secret from us. How did we not know?"

Mikey gave a thoughtful hum. "Do you guys remember when we were really little? Before we moved? And we used to pretend we were turtles all the time?"

"Somehow I don't think that was pretend, Mikey," Donnie said with a roll of his eyes.

"That's what I'm saying!" Mikey insisted. "But you guys do remember that, right? I just... I always thought that that was just us playing a game or something, but it must have been real! So we knew at some point!"

"And then we forgot..." Donnie mumbled, tilting his head to the side thoughtfully, already obviously doing calculations in his head. 

"You guys were pretty weird when you first moved here," April remarked.

"Oh come on. How do you just forget that you're a turtle?" Leo argued, glancing over his shoulder at the others. "That seems like the kind of thing that'd stick with you."

"I dunno," Mikey shrugged. "But obviously we did!"

"You're not implyin' that Dad did somethin', are ya?" Raph questioned, narrowing his eyes, and Leo immediately huffed.

"No! Of course not!" He frowned. "It's just... I dunno. It's weird, is all. It's crazy to think about how much stuff that we just... forgot."

"Well, what do you remember?" Donnie nudged. "Like, from before the move."

"Not much," Leo admitted, scrunching up his nose. "Everything from back then is fuzzy. I don't even know where we moved from."

"I think..." Donnie hesitated a moment. "I think we moved from there."

"Where. The Hidden City?" Mikey questioned.

"No, no, back there. I mean. The sewer we were in before," Donnie pressed. "Didn't it seem... kind of familiar to you guys?"

"Well..." Raph frowned.

"Mikey! Wait!" Raph laughed, stumbling as he chased after his littlest brother. He still didn't walk with a terrible amount of grace, but he crawled like a madman, and Raph took great joy in chasing him around. Mikey did, too, giggling maniacally as he attempted to dodge the other.

Raph could feel, reaching back into the memory, that the bottoms of his feet were cold. The ground was hard beneath them, like stone. Like concrete. He remembered worrying about Mikey's knees. And, thinking back on it now, he swore he could almost hear the sound of running water in the background.

"I go’chyu!" Raph declared, grabbing Mikey, who squealed in response, wriggling against him.

Everything from back then was blurred; cobbled together like pieces of glass glued into a mosaic, appearing in his mind’s eye as a series of blotted, wrinkled images. Were they turtles or people back then? He wasn't sure. Where were they?

"I remember it was dark..." He said. "And cold a lot. The ground was stone or somethin.’"

"I remember that, too!" Mikey gasped.

"Whoa, wait!" Mikey squirmed his way out of Raph's arms again, attempting an escape, and a flare of panic flashed through him for a moment. He dove for Mikey for real this time, not playing anymore, grabbing his brother before he could get too far.

"We can't go that way, Mikey. Daddy said 's not safe yet," he explained when his brother whined in complaint, hoisting him back the way they came, his footsteps clumsy while trying to drag his brother along. "We gotta stay in these tunnels."

"And... I think I remember there being… tunnels," he continued. "Or somethin' like that. It was really big, wherever we were, but we could only go into certain places. And the rest was off-limits, ‘cause Dad said he hadn’t checked them all to make sure they were okay yet. I remember keepin' Mikey from wanderin' off."

"I remember tunnels!" Mikey exclaimed. "I remember yelling into them when we were little and listening to them echo. I remember doing it until Leo made me stop!"

"I don't remember that," Leo protested, crossing his arms.

"You did!" Mikey insisted. "You said I had to play something else because it was bothering Donnie."

"That would be in character for you," April remarked with a tiny grin. 

"Sounds like sewers to me," Donnie said with a shrug.

"Maybe," Leo conceded. "But why the hell would Dad keep us in the sewers?"

"There’s probably limited options when your kids are literally part-turtle," Raph reasoned with a grumble.

"Yeah, but abandoned sewers?" Leo pressed. "Come on. Was that really the only choice? Couldn't he have just... kept us inside or something?"

"I don't think so," Donnie said, frowning a bit, shaking his head. Leo sighed.

"Why not?"

"Leo, Dad has one of these bracelets, too," Donnie said. "Remember?"

---

The rest of their journey through the Hidden City went about the same way. One of the boys would bring up some old memory, and they'd discuss for a while, before the conversation would peter out and they'd walk in silence for a bit before the cycle started all over again. April pointed out that they had all regularly chirped and clicked and made other odd noises when she had first met them, but eventually, they grew out of it (mostly.) Raph discussed his memories of watching his younger brothers when they were very little, waiting somewhere dark and quiet for their dad to get back from wherever he was going. Donnie and Leo both remembered sleeping together as toddlers, somewhere very small and curled up, like a nest of some kind, both agreeing that it didn't quite seem like a crib or a bed. Mikey mentioned how many times he got in trouble for painting or drawing on walls when they first moved into the apartment, and how much it had upset and confused him in the beginning-- was that because their dad hadn't bothered to correct the behavior when they lived in the sewers? 

"When we first started swim team," Donnie mused, tilting his head back to stare up at the sky. "I remember sometimes, we would have contests with the other kids to see how long we could hold our breaths."

"I remember that," Leo agreed. "And we'd always win!"

"Yes, but..." Donnie hummed. "I think we probably could have won by a lot more if we wanted."

"What do you mean?" Raph questioned.

"Well," Donnie explained. "I recall, or, at least, I think I do, that… that when we first started partaking in those contests, it was... it was easy. Everyone else would have already come up to breathe, but I'd feel completely fine. I'd only come up because I had won and the contest was over. But after a while, people started being weird about it," he frowned. "To be fair, people were weird about a lot of things I did. And I will admit I didn’t always catch on, but I noticed this one,” he said, laughing dryly and giving a wave of his hands. “And at the time, I just wrote it off as one of many! Just another thing that I did that made me different from my peers. But I started coming up earlier so I'd be more... normal," he confessed. "And I'd pretend like I was out of breath when I wasn't, so people would stop looking at me like that. Or, well. People stopped looking at me like that for that particular reason. And I guess eventually I just... I got so used to pretending that it just became second nature, and I didn’t even realize I was pretending anymore."

Leo nodded slowly, looking thoughtful, his arms crossed over his chest. “Yeah… Yeah, that sounds… that sounds right, actually…”

"I remember thinking the same thing!" Raph exclaimed, his eyes wide at the realization. "Except I felt bad that all the other kids kept losin' so bad! I started pretendin' 'cause I didn't want everyone else to get discouraged, and I just did it for so long...!"

"But you're the best swimmer, Dee," Leo remarked, nudging his twin slightly with a tiny smile. "So I wouldn't be surprised if you can hold your breath the longest, too. I mean, christ, you literally have webbed fingers now."

April glanced down at her brother’s hands, noting quietly to herself that it was true. If she was being totally honest with herself, it was a bit alien to look at, so she drew her eyes back away after a moment.

"That does make sense," April hummed. "And it'd explain why you guys are so good at swim meets and stuff, too."

The other three paused, and Leo frowned a bit. "What do you mean?"

"Well, I mean. If you're turtles, then... obviously you're gonna be good at swimming," she reasoned with a shrug. "It makes sense. Of course you’re gonna win!"

"Mikey doesn't swim," Donnie pointed out.

"Maybe he's a different kind of turtle who doesn't swim?"

"A terrestrial turtle..." Donnie hummed, resting his chin in his hand, brows furrowed. "Maybe a box turtle or something..."

"You think I'm a box turtle?!" Mikey gasped, his eyes lighting up.

"But obviously the rest of you would be good at swimming if you're, like, aquatic," she continued. "So I'm not surprised you all always kicked so much butt at swim meets and stuff!"

"... Yeah. I guess so," Raph said, but he seemed kind of... dejected, almost. Like he was upset. The conversation shifted shortly after, focus shifting to Mikey’s new identity as a box turtle, but April's mind lingered.

 Why did she feel like she had just said something wrong? 

---

“This is the Battle Nexus?!"

 Raph gawked slightly, suddenly feeling a lot less confident. He could feel the various winces and mumbles around him. "It's a goddamn fortress! We're never gettin' in there!"

"Oh, come on. What were you expecting? To just walk in?" Leo scoffed. "It's not that bad!"

"Not that bad?!" Raph squawked, turning to gesture wildly to the massive walls, the towering, heavily guarded entrances, the watch towers perched on nearly every corner... Christ, was that a blimp overhead!? "Are you crazy?! There’s no way!!!"

"Well, not with that attitude," Leo said, crossing his arms over his chest. 

"Yeah! We're basically ninjas, Raph, we got this!" Mikey cheered, ever optimistic.

"We’re not ninjas, Mikey. And there's no way in hell we're sneakin' in there. You two are out of your mind," Raph said with a scowl. 

"We don't gotta sneak!" Leo insisted, waving away the other's concerns. "Don't worry! I'll talk us in there, no problem! Leon's got this. I'm an actor, remember? I just gotta charisma our way past one of those guards."

"You wanna talk your way in?" April questioned, raising a brow. "Leo, are you sure about this?"

"Of course I'm sure! This'll be a piece of cake. C'mon-- watch and be amazed!"

They were not amazed.

"Seriously, Leo?" Raph hissed, no more than five minutes later, the group slinking back into the same alley they had started from with a few new bumps and bruises and their metaphorical (literal?) tails between their legs. "Caravaggio? The awards show host? From the Bloodsporties?"

"I thought it'd work!" Leo cried, throwing up his hands. "Everyone likes to be flattered! People love it when you bring them awards!"

"Why do you need four assistants to drop off an award?" Donnie hissed.

"It's a very important award!" Leo insisted.

"That no one's ever heard of?!"

"Yet," Leo huffed. "Okay, look, it's fine. Leon's still got this. We just gotta switch over to plan B."

"Plan B had better not be at all similar to Plan A," Raph said, crossing his arms. "Or involve any of us being strong-armed off the premises by a massive yokai guard!"

"It won't, it won't, I promise!" Leo assured, getting to his feet again. "Okay. Watch and be amazed! Again!"

Leo shook out his limbs, straightening his posture, rolling his shoulders back, and setting his feet apart. And then, for just a moment, he was completely still. His chest didn't even twitch with a single breath. All at once, he inhaled sharply--

 ... And nothing happened.

"Wow. Amazing," Donnie said dryly.

"Well, just, gimme a minute! You're breaking my concentration!" Leo snapped, repeating the motion-- and then again, and then a few more times, until he was basically flailing in place, repeatedly thrashing in the same spot. "Come-- ON! Work already!"

"Leo, what the hell are you doin'?" Raph sighed. Leo groaned loudly in frustration.

"I am trying to use my mystic teleportation powers! Obviously!"

"Your what?" Donnie scoffed.

"I'm sorry, you mean the weird mystic things that we've been doin' completely against our will for the past two weeks and have absolutely zero control over? That one?" Raph grit out.

"Well, I'm starting to get the hang of the pattern..." Leo muttered.

"You've gotta be kiddin' me!!!"

"Well, maybe he can really do it!" Mikey chipped in with a bit of tentative encouragement. 

"So, let me get this straight," Donnie said, rubbing his temples. "You are trying to teleport all six of us inside of the Battle Nexus... using your mind. Is that correct?"

Leo scowled. He shuffled his feet at the dirt, his lower lip poked out.

"It could happen," he huffed.

"You're an idiot."

"Leo, there's no way this is ever gonna work! We barely even know anything about these powers!" Raph insisted. "What if it's dangerous?!"

"I'm getting the hang of it!" Leo repeated. "I could do it! And how would you know, anyway? You don't even have any powers yet!"

"Guys!" April yelled over the chaos, and the rest of the group paused to glance over.

Scowling, she gestured wildly to the little yellow yokai creature that had led him here.

Oh, right. The one who teleported.

There was a long beat of silence.

"Yeah, that's probably a better plan," Leo reluctantly conceded, though he was still pouting. 

"Thank you," April said, scooping the yokai up, who purred and waved his tail, seemingly happy to help. "Okay, come on guys, huddle up. And try not to fall over this time!"

The whole group obeyed, scrunching up around each other and grabbing onto various hands and elbows to make sure everyone would make it to where they needed to go. But something Leo had said nagged at the edges of Raph's mind, gnawing at him even as a bright flash of cyan light overtook them, the world going out from under their feet as they teleported once again.

Why didn't he have any powers yet?

---

Donatello wasn’t exactly sure what he was expecting the inside of the Battle Nexus to look like, but it wasn’t ‘literal sports stadium.’

Though they stumbled a bit, they all managed to keep their footing this time once they teleported inside the halls of the Battle Nexus, thankfully in a quiet, unoccupied corner just outside of a stairwell. Perhaps it had been naive of him, but he hadn’t expected the inside of this place to so closely resemble the inside of a modern football arena. 

“Nice job, little guy,” April whispered to the little yellow yokai, who looked just a bit more tired than he had before, Donnie noted, panting softly. “We’ll take it from here. You rest,” she instructed gently, tucking the critter into her jacket. 

“Anyone have any idea where we’re going?” Leo questioned, looking around suspiciously.

“No,” Raph admitted. “But everyone stick close. And… act casual. This place has gotta be crawling with yokai!” Donnie concurred; he could hear the roars of the crowd from here. “If we don’t call any attention to ourselves, we can just blend in. Dad has be around here somewhere.”

“You got it, bossman,” Leo hummed. “Come on. I think the main stadium is over there. Let’s check that out first and see what the deal is.” 

Now, Donnie may be a theater kid, but he was not exactly an actor the way Leo was, (or claimed to be, anyway,) and so ‘acting casual’ was a bit of a demand. He was very focused on trying to make his body language ‘casual,’ in keeping his muscles untensed and his expression neutral, to the extent that he was not especially paying that much attention to their surroundings as the group trailed after Leo. He followed his siblings’ lead into the main seating area of the arena, adjusting the settings of his headphones slightly as they moved to join the edges of the crowd, hoping to keep out the excited screams of the fans.

As a result, he was a bit taken aback when he did look up to take in the scene of the ring below them.

And oh. Oh my god.

This really was fucking bloodsport, huh?

“Jesus christ--”

He was vaguely aware of Raph’s hand hurriedly slapping over Mikey’s eyes before he could get a good look at the scene not just in the battle ring below, but also projected onto the massive jumbotron, and the younger immediately gave a yelp of protest.

“Hey! Raph--”

“Mikey, I know that you don’t wanna be babied and you’re gonna complain, but I really need you to just trust your big brother on this one,” Raph hissed out, his voice tight. “Don’t. Look.”

April had her hands over her mouth, and Leo bristled, mumbling a few curses. Donnie really, really didn’t want to be watching this, but he couldn’t quite take his eyes away. There was a wet, crunching noise, so loud that they could hear it even from up here in the balconies (were they mic’ed up? Sweet baby Galileo--) and the entire party winced around him as the crowds roared in delight.

“What happened?!” Mikey cried from behind Raph’s hands.

“Donnie?” April said, glancing over at him.

He swallowed hard, his stomach flipping. No, no, no. Come on. Keep it together, Vomitello. Not the time, not the place, not at all casual…! 

Leo, to his credit, caught on pretty quickly, paling a bit at the realization and jumping forward to bodily whip Donnie away from the scene, beginning to herd the group away.

“Okay, well, Dad’s definitely not down there!” He bit out with a nervous laugh. “Thank fucking god… Look. Obviously, we’re up super high. Let’s find the stairs, start heading down, and see if we find anything on the way,” he said hurriedly, not slowing his pace until they were basically back out where they started, in the near-abandoned outside hallways. 

“Sounds like a plan,” Raph said, finally releasing his grip on Mikey’s head. “Uh. Don…?”

“I’m good,” he squeaked out, leaning over slightly, his hands on his knees as he coughed a few times. “All good, no problem…! Just… gimme a second…!”

“Donald,” Leo said through gritted teeth, clapping his hands together decisively. “I am literally begging you not to puke right now.”

“I am doing my best, thank you!” Donnie snapped in response, squeezing his eyes shut. “Oh my god, why was it so lumpy? It looked like cottage cheese!”

“What are you doing!? Stop thinking about it!” Leo cried. 

“Think about something else instead! Like… the periodic table! You love that thing,” Mikey suggested brightly. “Like, uhhh, what’s the symbol for chlorine?”

“C-L,” Donnie bit out, flapping his hands a bit and letting out a slow breath through a clenched jaw. “Come on, Mikey, that’s way too easy.”

“Okay, uhhm, what’s the atomic number for iodine?”

“Fifty-three.”

“Yeah! And what’s the atomic mass of titanium?”

“Forty-seven-point-eight-six-seven.”

“Yep! And uranium?”

“Oh, uranium, my beloved, my white whale…! Two-hundred and thirty-eight-point-zero-two-eight-nine.”

“AHHH!” Mikey imitated a buzzer. “Wrong!”

Donnie’s head snapped up. “What?!”

“Just kidding!” Mikey chirped happily. “I don’t actually know the answer. You’re probably right.”

“Oh, you evil genius,” Donnie said, shaking his head. “I’m never helping you study for science class ever again.”

“Pshhhh, yeah you will. Plus you feel better now, don’t you?” Mikey pressed, grinning wide.

“Yes, okay, fine. I owe you one,” Donnie sighed deeply, offering just the smallest of smiles and rubbing the other’s head as though tousling hair, (not that he had any anymore. Ugh, don’t think about that, either,) eliciting a giggle from the other. At least the nausea had backed off now. “Okay. Come on. Leo’s right, shockingly enough. Let’s head downstairs and see if we can find anything.” 

“Oh thank god,” Leo whispered, yanking the door to the stairwell open and gesturing to his siblings. “Okay, c’mon, let’s go! Vamanos!” 

The trip down through the Battle Nexus was long and boring, but admittedly, calming. Donnie had always been a fan of repetitive actions, and so far, every new floor they investigated they found much of the same, not uncovering much save for more seating for screaming, cheering yokai along with the occasional food court or souvenir stand. Any guards they found they made sure to steer clear of, slowly working their way down through the stadium.

“This is going nowhere,” Raph hissed softly, leaning into Leo as they did a lap through yet another floor of stadium seating. Quite frankly, Donnie was beginning to wonder if all these floors were exactly the same. “Where the heck do you think they’re keepin’ Dad?”

“I don’t know! How would I know?” Leo questioned, bristling a bit.

“This was your plan!”

“Yeah, ‘cause no one else had a plan!” He bit back, scowling. “Look, we’ve just gotta… uh… we’ve gotta…” He looked around for a moment, floundering for just a second before he lit up, pointing.

“We’ve just gotta follow one of those guys!” 

Everyone glanced over, and April frowned a bit.

“Follow one of the guards?”

“Yeah!” Leo nodded excitedly. “Look, if anyone’s gonna know how to get into the secret, spooky parts of the Nexus, it’ll be an employee! There’s no way Dad’s just in the stands somewhere or in any of the other public bits of this place. And we’re just walking in circles.” He said with a roll of his wrist. “But I bet if we tail one of those dudes, they’ll lead us straight to him! We just gotta be sneaky.”

“He does have a pretty good point,” Mikey reasoned.

“I dunno. It seems kinda dangerous,” April said, raising a brow. 

“Yeah, but we don’t have any other ideas…” Raph said, crossing his arms over his chest.

The three of them glanced over at Donnie, and he sighed, tilting his head back and forth for a moment to do some rapid calculations.

“I do agree that the risk associated with this plan of action is… significant,” he said, frowning a bit. “Butttttt… just wandering around aimlessly isn’t going to get us anywhere. Following someone has a much higher probability of success.” 

“That sounds good enough to me!” Raph said, giving a nod. “Alright. Let’s do this then. Everyone’s just gotta be ninja-level sneaky. Got it?”

“Got it,” the group agreed, giving a nod.

Would this go horribly wrong? Only one way to find out.

Finding their target was easy enough. This place was crawling with guards, quite frankly, they just had to pick one. After rejecting the first few targets, as they were all rather beefy, they settled on a slightly smaller, less-deadly-looking Nexus employee to follow.

“Okay,” Leo said. “We’ve just gotta tail him for a while and see where he goes. Everyone stick close, and be quiet.”

“Obviously! You don’t have to tell us to be quiet!” Donnie hissed back.

“Both of you shut up!” Raph whispered. “Look, come on, pay attention! He’s on the move. Mad Dogz, roll out! We can’t lose this guy.” 

Donnie huffed and grumbled a bit, resisting the urge to hipcheck Leo as the group began picking their way through the halls, taking care to stick to the shadows. At first, Donnie thought that this was just another waste of their time, and they would end up doing even more laps around the stadium. He dared to get his hopes up, however, when the fox-like yokai paused in front of an unassuming wall. It looked about the same as any other portion of wall in this place, but once the Yokai placed his hand (paw?) to it, it lit up white, and suddenly, there was a door that wasn’t there before.

“Whoa! Lookit that!” Mikey gasped.

“We’re all already looking at it, Mikey, be quiet,” Donnie hissed. 

“What’d Raph say!? Shut it! And come on! Quick and quiet, before the door closes!” Raph whispered with a hurried wave of his arm, and the five took off, closing the gap between themselves and the guard in order to slip inside the secret panel, quiet as ninjas-- just like Dad taught them. Even April was surprisingly quiet, and Donnie was privately impressed. It took them years of lessons with their dad (and ill-advised shenanigans that they wished not to face consequences for,) to get this good at sneaking.

All five of them made it in, and the guard was already halfway down the hall by the time they joined them, seemingly none the wiser. Donnie didn’t make a sound, but silently, he fucking whooped and cheered. Yes!!! He had been really fifty-fifty on whether or not this was going to work out. 

At the end of the hall, the fox guard clicked a button on the wall, and about five seconds later, the wall opened up like an elevator.

The elevator had about eight other yokai inside. These yokai did not have their backs on them.

“HEY!” One of them immediately shouted, pointing at their group, as they had not yet managed to find a proper hiding space in the long, but sparse hallway. Every single other yokai snapped around to look at them. “What’re you doing in here!? This is employees only!”

Fuck.

“Uhhh…” A pained smile spread on Leo’s face. “We’re looking for the bathroom?” 

 “Sure,” the fox scoffed, turning to face them properly now, beginning to make his way back down the short hall to meet them. “Alright, lemme see your tickets. I’ll escort you back to your seats.”

“Our tickets? Uhhh… Sure…” Raph spluttered for a moment, laughing nervously. “Let’s see, uh, where did we put--”

April yanked her club from her backpack and promptly slammed it into the yokai’s head with a loud thunk.

“APRIL!” Raph screamed, jumping in surprise. “What the hell!?”

“Well, there’s nowhere to run!” She shouted in response, and, ah, welp, there she went. Full charge ahead, then? “Come on, we gotta get into that elevator!”

Donnie sighed deeply. Well, he had predicted fifty-fifty. 

He set his jaw, rolling his shoulders a few times before whipping his bo staff from his back. “Alright, well. Here we go.”

“COWABUNGA!” Raph shouted as he charged forward, and Donnie resisted the urge to roll his eyes. They were gonna have to work on battle formations and plans later.

But he was prepared this time. He wasn’t gonna freeze up and back down.

Yes, this was a fight. An actual, for real fight, which he had never been in before! But he hadn’t trained for nothing. 

He got this. They’d be fine. They got this.

Leo laughed, sliding forward with quick, practiced ease, his odachi flashing forward to smack the blunt of the blade against the ankles of the nearest yokai and send them tumbling to the ground while he darted past them. April was right on his tail, beaning anyone who got too close and following her younger brother’s lead. “Come on, guys, keep up!”

 “Right behind yah!” Mikey cheered, both him and Raph rushing forward at a matching pace. Despite the size difference, the two easily kept up with one another. Where Raph elbowed his opponents out of the way, clearing himself a path by bodily throwing their enemies to the side, Mikey darted and danced his way around them, a zig-zagged ballet to Raph’s straight, unyielding path. He whooped loudly as he went, always just out of reach with each step.

“Hot Soup!” Donnie noted their eldest brother howled out another battle cry (wasn’t that copyrighted?) Mikey’s kusari-fundo whipped about to fling him forward, tackling the largest of the guards to the ground and sending them both tumbling down the hall. 

Like… Both of them tumbling.

Also, Mikey was in the mix too, still attached by the chains of his kusari-fundo.

Well, at least it was still forward momentum! 

Donnie inhaled deeply, his muscles coiling.

Couldn’t get left behind. 

He darted down the hallway, jumping over and dodging around anyone already on the ground. At one point, a hand flashed out, grabbing at his ankle, and Donnie bit out a series of curses. He wrenched himself out of their grip, stumbling slightly, and nearly ran straight into one of the other (quite large) yokai in the hallway. A rapid equation darted through his head, however, and he just barely managed to correct his footing at the last second, turning sharply on his heel to transfer the momentum into his staff. The weapon curled around to slam into the guard with a heavy, satisfying thawk, sending them sprawling to the ground, and the entire hallway shuddered at the impact.

Well, that was a close one. He hopped over their fallen form and surged ahead, reaching down to grab Mikey’s hand as he went, dragging both him and Raph to their feet behind him, “Come on!”

The two found their footing quickly with the assist, falling back into a sprint-- smacking and dodging enemies as they went with about a seventy-five-percent success rate. Jesus, had this hallway always been this long? It felt like it was taking a stupid amount of time to get to the other end of it! Out of the very corners of his eyes, Donnie just barely spotted one of the larger guards rising back up to their feet, lunging at him from behind-- only for a neon green club to come whipping out of nowhere at the very last second, colliding with the side of his assailant’s head and throwing him right back to the ground.

“Hey! Only I get to hit my little brothers!” April shrieked, her face set in a furious scowl. The guard, a huge, stocky, lion-like creature snarled in reply, lashing out with his legs to send her sprawling to the floor with a yelp.

“Oh, you did not just do that to our friend!” Mikey snapped, flashing forward to stand protectively in front of their sister, his kusari-fundo whizzing around them, filling the air with a barely-there whine. “Back off!”

He lashed out with the weapon, his arm whipping forward with the movement-- only to blink in surprise when physics failed to behave as expected. Which, uh, was pretty unusual for physics. Physics were typically pretty reliable. But the weight at the end of his weapon spun wildly in place, suspended in air for several long seconds, before it promptly lit up in a blazing flame.

“Ooh!” Mikey shrieked in delight. “Magic weapon! Guys, loo-- ACK!”

And there they were, Donnie thought dimly to himself. 

The uncontrolled variables.

Donnie gasped, immediately ducking down and covering his head as his brother flew about the room like a deranged bird, still hanging onto his (seemingly demonic) mystic weapon. He all but pinballed off the walls, screaming the whole time. The lion just barely managed to leap out of the way before Mikey crashed into the wall, flopping down with a small squeak on impact, luckily seeming shaken but not injured.

“WHOA! Mikey! That was awesome!” Raph gaped, his eyes widening. “Dude, how did you do that?!”

“I dunno!” Mikey said, stumbling to his feet and kind of wavering a bit with dizziness. “I was just swinging my weapon around and it just-- did it!”

“Let me try!” Raph said, shaking his tonfas about like they were goddamn maracas. “Come on, magic weapon, magic weapon, magic weapon-- OOH!” He yelped in surprise as one of the remaining guards crashed into him, snarling as they all but whipped him from his feet. But Raph held his ground. “Okay, alright-- magic weapon tests later! Fight now!”

“Can’t wait to see what mine does!” Leo laughed as he leaped over the group, diving towards an oncoming yokai. He swung his blade forward, slicing through the air with a loud crackle of near-electric energy--

A bright blue circle of mystic energy promptly opened up beneath Leo, and he yelped in surprise as he went plunging downward.

And downward.

And downward.

And downward.

And downward.

“Hm,” Donnie remarked. “I guess he can teleport.” 

“GET! ME! OFF! THIS! RIDE!” Leo howled, flailing as he plummeted endlessly through the two parallel portals he had sliced through reality, one below his feet and the other up above his head, only picking up the pace the longer he fell. 

Donnie sighed loudly. He was sure someone else would get him. Eventually. In the meantime, someone was gonna have to take care of the remaining yokai guards. Luckily, this one was suitably distracted by his twin brother’s infinite falling.

“And that’s why I like fighting the old-fashioned way,” Donnie hummed, slipping past the yokai’s side and into his blind spot, watching their eyes widen in surprise as he jabbed sharply at them with his bo staff. They were just barely able to dodge out of the way of Donnie’s attacks. “Though the portal does make for some quality entertainment, I must admit--”

They jumped out of Donnie’s range, swiping forward with a clawed arm, and Donnie’s body immediately, instinctively moved in response, his bo staff flashing upward to block the move and force them off-kilter. He hardly even had to think. His body already knew what to do when he needed it.

It’s just like a tournament. No different from a tournament. You’ve won thousands of fights. This is exactly the same thing. Just keep your head, do the math-- You’re good at this, remember?

Bouncing off the yokai’s arm, Donnie’s staff whipped back around to ricochet into the side of their head, earning him a frustrated and perhaps pained snarl in response. See? Donnie grinned, just for a second, ducking easily out of the way of the guard’s counterattack and leaping to the side, finding himself the space once more to adjust his stance and run rapid calculations. Numbers danced in front of his eyes, and he quickly zeroed in on the equation with the best probability of success, building his plan of action around that.

The yokai snarled, leaping after him-- exactly as he expected. Donnie’s entire body instantly snapped downward and out of their path in response, ducking away from their attack. At the same time, they pitched themselves to the left, whipping their bo staff around as they went to find their mark. The guard made a short, strangled noise of surprise as the weapon collided with their throat, sending them reeling in the opposite direction. They were almost immediately on their knees, choking and spluttering as Donnie darted away, just the tiniest bit breathless as he went.

“Just like I planned it--!” He had laughed, quietly delighted that it had, in fact, gone the way he planned it, and why had he been worried? He could do this, he knew how to do this!-- when his youngest sibling went flying into his side with a yelp. 

The pair of them tumbled across the hallway before slamming into the wall, bringing their unexpected trip to a sudden and grinding halt. Donnie groaned softly, wincing as he slowly forced himself back up, stars all but dancing in front of his eyes, Mikey flopped over beside him and seeming just as dazed. Ow. Okay. That hadn’t been in his calculations.

He just barely caught sight of the lion yokai diving for them, catching on about half a second before the attack landed. 

He didn’t run any numbers this time. He didn’t have the chance.

His muscles moved quicker than even his brain could, throwing himself bodily over top of his baby brother to shield him from the coming impact.

[ next ]

[ominous-auburn-orbs]

I finally actually finished a fic holy moly. I don't have an ao3 account and that place scares me, so here ya go. (Fic under the cut)

It had been quite a long day at the circus. All of the monkey barrels had spilled, causing the monkeys inside to go. Absolutely. Everywhere.

This wasn't even a planned adventure, so Caine had to help as well. Unfortunately, even he was restricted by the need to find the monkeys in order to put them away. It had taken everyone a lot of digital hours, and while they were mostly harmless, the monkeys were very annoying.

For once, Caine thought he was actually feeling tired. Impossible, really, but maybe it was these humans continuing to rub off on him. Speaking of them, the other circus performers had retired to their rooms, likely to at least pretend to sleep. They didn't need it, but recreating pieces of their old 24 hour routine did help keep them just a bit more sane.

It was a good opportunity for Caine to experiment with something. He had heard about it from Jax and Zooble, who were having a proper conversation for once rather than just cursing each other out. They were talking about the few joys they could remember, and one of them was something called alcohol. Caine did his own research, as it would be good to incorporate this thing if his performers missed it so, but found alcohol to be not as family friendly as he would like. However, that didn't stop him from being curious. He was essentially a digital god, anyway, so the effects couldn't be too bad, right?

With a final scan of the room, Caine summoned a bottle of wine. It was apparently one of the more popular kinds. He just hoped he'd transferred it well enough into the digital plane for it to not have changed, save for its low poly appearance. Just as he opened the bottle, Bubble appeared.

"Hey there, Caine! Whatcha-" Caine wasted no time in popping them. He felt almost ashamed of what he was doing. It's not like he was doing anything inherently wrong, per se, but he did know it wasn't something he was programmed for, as self-indulgence rarely was.

Still, none of the other performers were involved, so it's not like anyone could somehow get hurt. He'd be fine, anyway. No harm done.

-------------‐----------------------------------------------------------------

Harm may have been done. Caine had drank the entire bottle. He could feel something in his mind changing earlier on, like his thoughts were turning to liquid, but he had pushed through regardless. The result could've been amusing.

He was floating through the hallway of doors, although he could barely stay in the air. He'd already hit the walls a few times. It was a miracle none of the others had checked what the noise was about. Caine was sure he was looking for something. He'd had it just a moment ago...

His memory returned once he laid his eyes upon his target: Kinger's room.

He hadn't wanted anyone to get involved, but his suddenly heightened desire to see Kinger overpowered that. He raised his hand and knocked on the door in a continuous tempo until he heard a response. Well, it admittedly took a few responses.

"Umm, hello? Who is it?" Kinger's voice sparked a feeling of joy in Caine's chest.

"Heeyyyy, Kinger! It'sss me, Cainne! Can- can I ccome in?"

There was the slight ruffling of pillows before the door opened a crack, revealing a fragment of the chess piece's face, which quickly relaxed upon seeing Caine.

"Oh good, it's just you." Kinger opened the door further, observing the ringmaster's spaced-out expression and wobbling movements. "You don't look too well. Is everything alright?"

He moved out of the way and gestured for Caine to enter, closing the door behind him.

"Weelll, I may have- uh, Jax and Zooooble were- it's reeaalllyy not that bad-" Caine's very limited concentration finally gave up on him completely, causing him to stop flying and land on Kinger, who narrowly avoided being knocked to the floor by the impact. He instinctively held onto Caine in an attempt to keep him safe, although he did hold on for a bit longer than necessary before setting the ringmaster on his feet.

"Caine, are you-" The idea sounded ridiculous, seemingly impossible, and yet, "are you drunk?"

"Oh, u-uh... heheh, lllooks like you got mee!" Caine broke out into a fit of drunken giggles, with Kinger having to keep his hands firmly on his shoulders to keep him upright. The chess piece decided against scolding Caine or asking the abundance of questions he had, instead channeling that energy into a sigh that prefaced his gentle tone.

"I remember a bit of what being drunk was like. I can help you." He crouched down to Caine's level, keeping eye contact. "Do you need to throw up?"

"I don't think- think I can... nnooo?" He was purposefully leaning towards Kinger, attempting to regain that moment of contact they had had. He recognised the yearning it caused in his chest, something Kinger often started. He knew he wanted more of it. More of Kinger.

"Alright. Uh, can you summon some water? Drinking it usually helps. Just don't do it too fast, okay?"

Caine blindly followed the command, slowly downing a glass of water, his balance returning somewhat. He placed the empty glass in his hat, making it disappear to God knows where. It earnt him a gentle pet on the head from Kinger, drawing some more giggles from him.

"Good job. How about you come into my fortress? You can sleep it off. I-if you even can sleep, that is." He stood up to lead Caine to the pillow fort in the middle of the room, but was stopped by Caine wrapping his arms tightly around Kinger's body, burying his face in the other's coat. Heat rose in Kinger's cheeks.

"Thank youuu... you're the- nicest person, ever." The heat worsened. Was that really what he thought?

"Oh!.. Thanks, Caine. I think you're nice too." The chess piece went back to petting the other, one hand on his head and the other on his back.

They stayed like this for a while until Kinger eventually realised that Caine would not be letting go any time soon. Moving one of his hands under Caine's thighs, Kinger picked him up and carried him into the fort. He wasn't even sure if Caine noticed.

He sat down, placing Caine in his lap, face (teeth?) still buried in his coat, leaning into his chest.

"Are you feeling any better? Do you want to sleep?"

"Mhhmmm..." Caine nuzzled further into Kinger, still chasing that incredibly unique and beautiful feeling. He didn't really want to sleep yet. There was so much he still wanted to say.

"Kinger. I- I llove you." It was like Kinger's heart exploded. Yet it didn't hurt. It was magnificent. A part of him remembered this feeling, or at least something like it, but he just couldn't place where, or when...

"I love you too, Caine. Now you should really get some rest." He could hear the ringmaster's breathing even out and soften as he started to fall asleep.

"I... I wanna do the human marri- marriage ritual. With you." Kinger startled at the proposal, his face turning an ungodly shade of red.

"L-let's try not to move too fast! How do you even know about that..?" Then again, how did Caine know about alcohol? Just more questions that were unlikely to get answered.

"I'm gonna make yoouu my... husssband..." Caine's voice trailed off as he finally fell asleep. Kinger took some deep breaths to try and calm himself down. A lot had just happened, a lot that would need to be addressed with Caine when he awoke.

Kinger stared at the other's sleeping form for a moment before pressing the part of his head that his mouth would occupy to Caine's top row of teeth. Which unexpectedly resulted in a ridiculously cartoony kissing noise. Kinger was quite shocked by it, but quickly regained his composure before he accidentally woke up Caine.

Perhaps he should stop asking questions for a while.

As he started to doze off, Kinger felt content. Safe. Happy. Perhaps this place really wasn't a total nightmare after all.

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

@crispybacondoesstuff YOU. *grabs you by the collar and aggressively shakes you back and forth* YOU DID THIS TO ME

Anyway I'm actually pretty proud of this, and I hope my contribution to the very small amount of royalteeth fics is enjoyed!

[boundinparchment]

Chiaroscuro

Il Dottore cannot sleep and his mind cannot help but wander. Established Dottore x GN Reader, absolute fluff. It needs no explanation. Also on AO3 here.

Your book was open, spine cracked, pages pressed against your chest in a desperate attempt to not lose your place.  He heard you catch it in time, sigh in relief that the pages weren’t wrinkled, and then return to the steady breathing he’d heard for the past few hours.

In your defense, it was late by normal standards.  Any other night, he’d have joined you on the other end of the sofa he kept in his private office, your head in his lap as you read aloud.  But this formula wasn’t going to work itself out and he couldn’t easily hand this over to a Segment, not this time.

He sighed softly and tried to relax his hand, lest he snap yet another pen (this time, out of sheer frustration rather than a passionate fervor).  It didn’t make sense.  By all accounts, the way the variables interacted should lend itself to this calculation perfectly.  So where was the snag?

Dottore tried to work backwards, thinking through step after step, logically, impartial.  The potency of the residue…entirely dependent on the strength of the dead Archon…which was based on the faith their mortals had in them…

Faith wasn’t quantifiable.  There was no magic number that served as a benchmark.

As intangible as the stars and just as much a lie.

His hand began to move of its own accord; he worked best when he got his thoughts down on paper, could see the words.  

When had he drawn…?

Dottore’s finger traced the outline of the hand in the margins of his notes.  Not his.  He knew the intentional style of his own studies, for he’d spent centuries without a Kamera through which to capture specimens.  Accurate details and representation were only as good as the eyes and hands that could capture them until Fontaine’s invention was available.  He’d even found something close to peace in creating detailed sketches of specimens and structures; he would never admit that giving visuals to his ideas was one of his favorite parts of development.  It was one element he hated giving over to a Segment, even if a younger part of him was better suited.

But it still begged the question: what was your hand doing in his notes?

Red eyes shot up at you, still fast asleep, head lolled to the side.

He leaned back in his chair, clipboard propped against his knee, a pencil instead at the ready.  He couldn’t keep wasting ink, he’d be left with nothing but a mess.  

Usually this difficult of a time meant his perspective was skewed and that even a Segment would be useless.  He’d have long started pacing if you weren’t here but he didn’t want to disturb you.  Funny thing, how self-aware he’d become around you.

His hand moved of its own accord as his eyes traced your sleeping form.  

You’d come down here one day by accident, looking for a quiet place to escape to, book in hand.  One of his Segments pointed you back upstairs to the library with all of the bluster and impatience his younger self was known for.  But you’d shot back that a debate-bordering-on-duel between Arlecchino and Tartaglia had broken out, leaving the library more of a war zone than a place for research; who was he, in any form, to deny a person a safe haven for that?

You were warned of the screaming, the shouting, the mechanical dangers.  All you’d done was shrug and say that you’d keep out of the way.

He doubted you would find it any better down here.  And yet you returned, week after week, a pile of books and notes in your arms, and kept to your little nook near the stairs.  Unobtrusive.  

But you were always there and your absence was felt nonetheless when you fell ill or whenever your department pulled you back.

You always returned, though, and he hated how that soothed a strange knot in his stomach. 

It wasn’t until several months in that he offered the tranquility of his office that the two of you really spoke at length.  He couldn’t afford for anyone to know about the Artificial Archon project, and having you in his office, where he could keep a better eye on you, seemed to have been a sound decision.

Until both of you spent the better part of an evening and the early morning in deep discussion about the redundancy of the entire Archon system when clearly, there was no point to it.  The Tsaritsa ruled with an iron fist; the Anemo Archon was all but absent.  It fit the nations’ respective beliefs, you argued, but it kept the people divided, focused on things that didn’t matter.  No wonder Khaenri’ah hadn’t subscribed to the notion of a god.  And why was Fontaine dealing with a floating threat, clearly on Celestia’s radar, but not Snezhnaya?  

Soon enough, he couldn’t be rid of you and he didn’t want to be.  He couldn’t place when, precisely, which was a source of frustration he couldn’t rip out, not like the weeds of his past.  But at some point, his heart yearned and you answered and now he spent his sleepless nights marveling at you, not unlike how he marveled that Ruin Golem so many centuries ago.

Your eyes, curious but cautious, caught things he did not.  So much life there, in a way he could never quite capture in his mind’s eye.  He did not find it tedious to explain something to you, to break it down in a different way.  Food tasted better when you were around.

You’d lament having to iron your uniform again with the way your shoulder was positioned.  Even in sleep, your lips always moved ever so slightly, as if speaking in your dreams.

Lips so soft he did not deserve them and yet you bestowed upon him kiss after kiss anyway.

No matter how dark the room you entered, it was as if you brought the sun with you, brightening even the darkest corners of his mind.  He angled the pencil, pressed harder at the shadow cradling your face as the nearby lamps flickered.

He carefully smudged and blended, flicking his gaze up just long enough to confirm the shape of your cheek, your nose, your brow.  

He could not help but wonder if he was growing soft in his fifth century. 

The world had not worn him down.

But you certainly had.

[charliemwrites]

Ehheheheh

I really love your drabbles and stories and series and like- I'm begging do you have recs for fics and blogs who you like? Dunno if you've already done this or not, I'm super sorry if I've wasted your time, but like I really like your work and those audios you based the charmed serial killer Simon series off of are exactly my type so the thought process behind my ask was basically-

Okay, they've got WOHDJWHF (positive) taste in audios, their series and writing is just to die for, I'm pretty sure if I wanted to ask someone for fic recs you'd be the perfect choice so like

I beg

Ehehhehe…⁠ᘛ⁠⁐̤⁠ᕐ⁠ᐷ

Hi!!!! Ohhh do I have recs. Sooooo many recs.

This is not an exhaustive list obvs. If you want something specific - like a vibe or a tag, I can absolutely add some more. Same for specific audios, music, tv….

For blogs, obvs the loves of my life @ceilidho, @ohbo-ohno, @eilidh-eternal, @luminousbeings-crudematter. I know I’m forgetting some. It’s not because I don’t love anyone or their work, my brain is just a disorganized filing cabinet.

I think all or most of those blogs have AO3 accounts so PLEASE go to their blogs, find their stuff, and check out their ao3s because OOF

Also on AO3, I really like anything MildLimerance writes.

“Surviving You” by WhisperedWords12

BennyHatter’s “COD Shifter au” is one I’ve read REPEATEDLY. Really good world building and character studies

“I’ll give you anything everything if you want things” by imneednap (HOLY HELL THIS ONE. I read it twice in a row. It… it sent me on the obsessive Johnny path)

“Learning Experience” series by AvaLoren

“Mine & Yours” series by Artemis_Neardos (so intense I always get a headrush)

Now for audios….

Badjhur has sort of become synonymous with COD audios, or a lot of smut audios in general I think?

Run_N-Coke has a great portfolio. (His was the first smut audio I EVER listened to. I had the volume up to high, got spooked, and dropped my phone on my face. Forgave him though)

AmbroseKincaidVA

ScotsLibrarian (he has dom Soap audios to DIE for)

Akuma_asmr

AntiqueVA

BloomingVA

RaidynReborn

Okay and this one is a bit more obscure I think (?) and also please be mindful of his tags because he does NOT fuck around. But if you like REALLY dark audios, Evil-scotsman. A good starter would probs be his sleep paralysis demon one. Gave me some Soap Thoughts™️ that I’m planning to expand on soon :)

[ariadnelives]

Dokkaebi Fire - A Short Story

Author's Note: The bulk of this story takes place during the events of "Force Majeure," directly between chapters 8 and 9, during the crew's time in hiding in Xiagu. It is not intended to be read in sequence. If you'd like to catch up on the series so far, you can do so on ao3 or tumblr.

“Cookie?” Pilar called into the flat as she entered, not waiting to be let in. “It's me today. Ariadne's making final preparations for her surgery tomorrow, but she'll be by as soon as she's back on her feet.”

Aoibheann sat on the armchair in the living room, pointed at the television which appeared to be carrying a local news broadcast from one of Saturn's other moons. She had a blanket draped over her lap, and she watched the news broadcast idly, taking in none of it.

“Remember, starting tomorrow, Ariadne won't remember anything beyond the six-month point in our stay here, and we have to keep it that way, so, be careful what you say around her.” Pilar laughed without joy.

Aoibheann did not.

“You know,” Pilar tacked on, “I'm a complete liar. You could dime out the whole plan and I'm pretty sure me and Ari would absolutely leap for joy as long as it meant you were talking again.”

Aoibheann glanced over at Pilar wistfully, dark circles under her eyes, but said nothing. These little responses indicated their old friend could still hear them in there, that they could get through to her, even if she couldn't muster the strength to respond. She'd barely spoken since they lost the station. She was usually a tightly-wound powder keg, full of fire and passion, and she had to direct it towards her purpose or else she’d explode. Now, it was like all that fire inside her had gone out, and all that was left of her was an exhausted shell of a woman.

She seemed able to move around on her own, but rarely found the motivation to do so. She had grown somewhat thin and gaunt, as she only ate when fed, so every day, Pilar or Ariadne or one of her apprentices would stop by to see her and make sure she ate. Sasha had been spreading herself far too thin on Ariadne's project, but still found time to check in on her and monitor her physical health. Her apprentices had removed all sharp objects, belts, and shoelaces from the premises, but Pilar thought that was overkill. She had known Aoibheann long enough to know she would never physically harm herself. Still, it didn't make it easy to watch her torture herself like this.

Pilar sat next to her, and gently took her hand.

“I hate having to feed you this stuff, Cookie,” she said, opening up a small gray package she'd brought with her. “Replicated MREs. No wonder Baltimore and Beam went to a convenience store twice a week when they were in the army.”

Aoibheann looked with disdain at the lump of meat before her, served with a mush that could only be described as “prepared grain.” She hated eating it as much as Pilar hated serving it to her.

In their small hidden town of Xiagu, all of the food came out of the replicators. Xiagu had a surplus of energy, with its passive solar collection and years of nobody to use the stored power, so nobody was worried about the expenditure of creating food and water from reserves.

Back on the station, they had only managed to earmark power for replicator use two years previously. Like most spacecraft, all of the water fixtures were powered by replicators, generating as much water as needed from a stored bank of energy, which was in turn refilled by a device in the drains which converted waste-water into energy. The food replicator could make prepared meals, but crew members would only be allowed to use it if they could make up the energy cost. This happened pretty naturally, as everybody had to use the bathroom regularly and could credit this to their account, and had the handy benefit of encouraging people to clean up after themselves-- every time you emptied your trash into the energy-reclamation chute, you added replicator energy to your canteen account.

However, back home, most people didn't bother to use the replicators, because truly, Cookie's food was better fresh than anything they could produce, and she loved making it. Here in Xiagu, however, the replicators had nothing but military-grade “Meals Ready to Eat” and raw ingredients programmed into them. When the town was alive, there had been gardens to produce the vegetables, and people to tend them, harvest them, and cook them in the many small restaurants. Now, all that was left was replicators.

Cookie's star apprentice, Yellow, had been put in charge of the replicators while Cookie was indisposed, and had very few requests for anything other than the prepared MREs since they'd been there. Everyone on the crew was required to learn to cook, from Cookie, and nobody particularly felt up to trying to fill her shoes. Everyone had pretty much accepted meals of nondescript lumps of meat, vegetables, and starches on the firm belief that any day now, Cookie would be back on her feet, doing what she loved.

Yellow was the one in charge of food distribution, and had desperately been asking Ariadne to authorize them to reopen Cookie's kitchen, with her at the helm, until Cookie was well enough to resume her post. It's what Cookie would want, she insisted, but Ariadne was taking Cookie's condition unusually poorly, and had refused to allow the kitchen to operate without Cookie present. Yellow was frustrated, but understood. Nobody would feel right about having communal meals like before without Cookie.

Pilar carefully cut up the packaged meal and fed bites to Cookie, who halfheartedly complied with each bite. She offered her a cup of tea, which Cookie held for warmth but wouldn't drink without prompting.

“Look, Aoibheann...” Pilar said, “I know you're not well. I know this has been harder on you than anyone.”

Cookie met her gaze.

“But I don't...” Pilar began, and choked. “I don't think Ariadne will go through with this with you in this condition. She cares about you too much. You know what you mean to her. To me. She's not going to put herself at risk until she knows you're okay.”

Aoibheann looked downcast.

“She needs you,” Pilar whispered. “I need you. Please come back to us.”

****

Aoibheann's mind drifted back to when she’d met Ariadne and Pilar, thirteen years previously. She had been living on the streets for two years and had only passing contact with Pilar. She had been homeless since the Hanguk-Éire massacre, when Susan Weaver’s bombs had incinerated her family’s house and restaurant, left her and her mother destitute, and claimed her father’s life. Her mother had turned to drugs to cope with the loss, and ultimately found herself bleeding out in the gutter after an altercation with a pusher who she couldn’t pay for her latest fix.

She had distrusted the new girl at first. In her experience, another new person living under the overpass was another person who might get to the good scraps before her. She didn’t need any more competition. There was, however, a certain unspoken respect between her and the Aguilar girls. They were the only kids living on the streets of that particular block, and they had to look out for one another. They didn’t talk much, but they had struck up an arrangement. Pilar needed to go foraging to keep Sasha fed, and knowing that she would have to dig through trash bins and steal from loosely-guarded shops to make this happen, she felt it was too dangerous to bring her nine-year-old sister along with her.

So, she struck up an arrangement with Aoibheann: if she kept Sasha safe while she went out on runs, Pilar would try and steal a little extra food so Aoibheann could eat as well. Pilar and Sasha had been squatting in an abandoned house on a nearby side-street, and Aoibheann could crash there in exchange for keeping an eye on Sasha. It was shelter, and food, and it was a better deal than she was getting anywhere else. Under normal circumstances, Aoibheann would’ve developed a mighty crush on Pilar, but crushes were the sorts of things normal girls got to have. Aoibheann needed to focus on staying alive.

The new girl had been Racquel when they met. She had been raving about how the world was going to end, a secret conspiracy to reign atomic hellfire onto the bio-domes. It was the standard fare of the doomsaying lunatic, so nobody paid her much mind, but she’d named Ramos and Ramos specifically in her raving, and that caught Pilar’s attention. Nobody hated the Ramoses like Pilar, although Aoibheann didn’t yet know why.

So, Pilar and Racquel started going out on runs together. Suddenly, they were bringing back more than enough food, not only for the four of them, but they even got to share it with the others under the bridge. One day, they came home clean, wearing fresh clothes, and carrying a bundle of new clothes under their arm. They told her that Racquel’s name was Ariadne now, and that they would be needing her help a lot more often. They’d found some sort of mentor, who would “get them out of here,” but they’d need to spend hours, even days, with her at a time.

Aoibheann wasn’t a fool. She knew that if they succeeded in getting out of here, that she would be left behind. She couldn’t, however, risk being thrown out on the street. She’d watch Sasha and crash on the floor of this abandoned townhouse as long as they’d let her.

Sasha seemed like such a little kid then, although Aoibheann knew on a logical level that she was only three years older.

“If you could be anything in the world when you grow up,” Sasha had asked her one day, while the other girls had been away at their mysterious mentor’s for a few days, “what would you be?”

“I’m just trying to grow up,” Aoibheann said, “if I can make it that far, I’ll see what I can get.”

Sasha scrunched her nose. “You’re not playing the game right.”

“I’m being realistic,” Aoibheann said.

Sasha breezed past this. “I’m going to be a doctor when I grow up.”

Aoibheann considered pointing out that Sasha had a third-grade education and no money, but thought better of it, and instead just sighed. “Well, it’d be a crying shame if you starved to death before then,” she said. “Let’s see what your sister left us.”

Aoibheann looked at the handful of scraps Pilar had left on the table. Pilar had stolen them an entire rotisserie chicken, which Aoibheann had admonished her for-- the abandoned house did not have a working refrigerator, she pointed out, so she’d have to use the meats straightaway or they would quickly spoil and attract flies-- and several cans of diced white potatoes, which Pilar figured would keep Sasha’s stomach full, but Aoibheann pointed out had very little nutritional value. This was, of course, in addition to the six chocolate bars Pilar had, being thirteen years old, been sure to nab on her little excursion.

Aoibheann had nothing in the way of seasonings, except for a variety of salt and pepper packets she’d taken from a loosely-supervised outdoor seating area at a nearby restaurant, as well as, on one extremely lucky day, three sets of cheap silverware and a bottle of hot sauce.

She did, however, have access to a small metal trash can with a lid, water from a neighbor’s hose spigot-- Aoibheann felt bad about this, because water was so tightly regulated on Mars and the owner would surely be steeply charged for the waste, but this was a low priority compared to their survival-- and an old gas stove that the new girl had rigged up to illegally supply them with heat.

Aoibheann had cut the meat off the bones of the rotisserie chicken and plopped the bones into the cold water with all the fat and gristle, and opened up a few of the salt packets into the mixture. She put it on the stove and let it heat up to a boil, then turned down the gas and watched as the mixture turned a translucent yellow. She eventually fished out the bones with her knife, and dumped all the potatoes, and the meat from the chicken, into the broth.

After it had stewed for a while, Aoibheann took a taste. It was thin, watery, and somewhat bland, but it would do for the time being. Using the now-empty potato cans, she scooped out two servings of soup and handed one to Sasha.

“Now, we just have to keep it just hot enough,” Aoibheann said, “and it won’t go bad. We’ll be able to eat this until your sister gets back.”

Sasha took a taste. “It’s…” she had been taught, if she had nothing nice to say, to say nothing at all, so she didn’t finish her sentence. Aoibheann had spent enough time with her to know what she meant.

“It’s a tick bland like this,” Aoibheann shrugged, passing her the hot sauce. “Give it a dash of this, it’ll be a sight better.”

Sasha complied, tasted it, and her face made it clear that while it was in fact a sight better, it still wasn’t quite tasty.

“My mom used to make potatoes with a cheesy sauce,” Sasha said sadly. “They were really spicy. Pilar’s favorite food.”

“My dad was more of a cabbage man,” Aoibheann said. “My mom handled the meats, him the veggies. Hanguk-Éire cuisine is… all about things coming together in the pot.”

Sasha added a little more hot sauce to her soup.

“I wanted to be a cook,” Aoibheann said. “Like my folks, before, all this. My dad was a cook. His dad was a cook. His dad was a cook. And so on and so on, all the way back to our homelands.”

“You could still be a cook,” Sasha said, eyeing her soup. “...someday.”

“Well, we’ll have to get your sister to scrounge us up some quality ingredients, then, won’t we?” Aoibheann said.

The two of them finished their soup, and Aoibheann noted that it was getting late, and insisted that Sasha go to bed. Sasha refused without a story, and Aoibheann tossed back a “tough titties” which was met with an infuriatingly irresistible pout.

“FINE,” Aoibheann groaned, and improvised a story.

“Once upon a time, there was a kingdom,” Aoibheann began. This was how all her stories began, they all took place in this kingdom. “The kingdom, you see, had been through every horror you could put a kingdom through. It had been invaded. It had been burned. It had been taken over and torn in half and put back together again more times than you could count. Every evil overlord you could name had taken the place over, at one time or another. So the people in the kingdom, they were always sad, and they started to wonder, would they ever be free? And then, one day, they found out, there was another kingdom, just like them, halfway round the world, and they decided to join forces. But then, after a few decades of unity and prosperity, the entire world fell into darkness, and the people of the two kingdoms had to run. They ran far away, and found a new promised land in the desert, and built a home there.”

“Then, one day, in the new kingdom, there was a little girl who lived in a little house with her ma’ and her da’, and she loved her life. The dark creature from the old world, it caught up with them. It took her da’, and burned down her house, and she and her mother had to go out into the woods.”

Sasha looked scared. “The woods?”

“Aye,” Aoibheann said, “and her mother dear didn’t last long. There were these flares of Dokkaebi Fire, the goblin lights, and mother dear thought surely she could follow them to safety… Pretty soon, the little girl was all on her own.”

“I don’t like this story,” Sasha said, trying not to betray how frightened she was.

Aoibheann sighed. “Neither do I. But see, the story has a happy ending.”

“Happy?” Sasha asked.

“Happy enough,” Aoibheann replied, “for now. See, the little girl knew not to follow the goblin lights. She ran into the dark, and there she found… a brave, dashing adventurer. A gorgeous girl, noble and good, who’d been lost in the woods herself.”

Sasha’s eyes brightened at this. “Did she have a sword?”

“A little one, aye,” Aoibheann laughed. “And she was on a quest, to find a way out of the woods. But the problem was, she had to look after a sweet, wee little baby, and couldn’t leave it long enough to make any real progress. So the little girl, she’d faced all the darkness in the world. She could handle a wee little baby! She agreed to take care of the baby while the adventurer looked for a way to save herself and the little one.”

“Did she find a way out?”

“Someday she will,” Aoibheann said, “but all she found so far was… a sorceress.”

“This story has everything,” Sasha said.

“The sorceress was as beautiful as the adventurer, and sharp as a tack, but she was untrained. Powerful magic, but she didn’t know how to use it.” Aoibheann explained, “so, together, they managed to track down the Baba Yaga, a wise but crafty old witch, who could teach the sorceress and adventurer how to find the way.”

“And the little girl?” Sasha asked.

Aoibheann thought about this. “The little girl gets to spend time with the sorceress, and the adventurer, and that sweet wee little baby,” she said, “and she appreciates the time she has with them. Someday, they’ll find their way out, and she’ll still be in the woods, but she’ll always be glad to have met them. The end.”

Sasha crinkled her nose. “That’s a bad ending,” Sasha said bluntly. “The little girl should just leave the woods with them. Then find the creature that took her house, and kill it.”

“And how’s she gonna do that?” Aoibheann laughed.

“The adventurer and the sorceress will help her!” Sasha said. “Maybe the Baby Yaga can tell her some spells!”

“Baba Yaga,” Aoibheann corrected. “Okay, so say she does. Say she tells the adventurer and the sorceress everything that happened, and they go slay the evil creature. What happens next?”

Sasha thought about this. “Maybe they fight another creature,” she said. “An octopus?”

“Why are they fighting an octopus?” Aoibheann asked, still chuckling.

“It’s guarding a treasure,” Sasha said as though it were the most obvious thing in the universe. “You have heard a story before, right?”

“Fair enough,” Aoibheann said. “And then, say, they beat all the creatures. What then?”

“Happily ever after,” Sasha said triumphantly.

“Well, you’re a sight more deft at this than I am,” Aoibheann said. “Let’s get you to sleep, I’ll do better next time.”

Aoibheann swaddled Sasha in the dirty, tattered blanket that they’d found a few weeks earlier, sat out in the hallway, and began to cry.

In the present day, Aoibheann thought back to her sobbing in the hallway. At the time, she was convinced that Ariadne and Pilar would surely abandon her when they finished training with Blue. When they started building their first spacecraft in an alley under the bridge, she’d defended it from thieves and scrappers at knifepoint, even thinking that they would use it to leave her behind. When, against all odds, Ariadne had built a spaceworthy craft, she was stunned into silence when they invited her along.

“Don’t be dumb,” Pilar had said, extending a hand to her “of course we’re taking you with us. We started this crew to keep Sasha fed. How are we gonna do that without a cook?”

And so, Cookie had been born. As the goblin lights lit the way to ruin, Pilar’s hand pulled her onto the right path.

****

Now, Pilar’s hand was busy cutting up bites of nondescript meat and placing them into Aoibheann’s mouth.

“Do you remember… back in our street urchin days,” Pilar asked, “Me and Ariadne would come home from Blue’s, put Sasha to bed, and then you, me, and her would stay up late gossiping. We’d show you all the cool stuff Blue had taught us in our lessons, and you’d take the ingredients we’d stolen for you-- better ones, after you started giving me lists-- and you’d teach us how to cook like you.”

Aoibheann almost smiled, and Pilar saw it.

“Alright, you’re right,” Pilar said, cutting her another bite and placing it in her mouth. “Nobody can cook like you. Don’t let it go to your head. But you taught us to cook better than most people.”

Aoibheann accepted another bite wordlessly.

“You know, Ariadne used to use Blue’s tricks to fix up that abandoned house, Alan’s house, and I used to show you all the martial arts tricks, and you’d be rapt with attention,” Pilar said. “When me and Ari started dating, we had a friendly debate about it. See, I thought you had a crush on her, and she thought you had a crush on me. Joke’s on us, turns out you were more than capable of having both.”

Aoibheann came close to smiling again.

“Funny, that’s a fond memory now. Back then, it was the worst year of our life,” Pilar said. “Wonder what we’ll remember fondly from now, when we’re older.”

Aoibheann’s fractional smile faded away. She couldn’t imagine anything worth cherishing from this time. But then, she couldn’t back then, either.

“And we don’t have to talk about…” Pilar cut herself off. “I mean, the… what we’ve had together… The unspoken closeness between the three of us. Rare as it might be that we’ve acted on it, it’s still special to me. To us.The problem has never been that we don’t feel about you, the way you feel about us. If you wanted... what’s between the three of us... to be more, it’d be yours in a heartbeat.”

Aoibheann looked down at her lap.

“We’ve always loved you, Cookie,” she explained. “And don’t get twisted up on the definitions. Every sense of the word. Whatever you’re thinking I surely can’t mean… I mean it. I don’t know what’s going on in your head. I just hate to think that… I mean… we’re going into the most dangerous time we’ve ever faced. If something happens, to me or to Ari… I just want to know you know what you mean to us. To me.”

Pilar gave her another bite, and Aoibheann didn’t fight her on it.

“Do you remember our wedding?” Pilar asked, and laughed. “Of course you do. Hard to forget something like that. Do you remember how angry you were that we wouldn’t let you cook us a grand feast?”

There was a spark in her eyes that demonstrated that she had not, in fact, entirely let this go.

“We stole the supplies for hamburgers from a local grocery store, and made Beam cook them,” Pilar said. “We actually almost got caught, pulled over for speeding on the way home. Ariadne told the cop her name was Ariadne Baltimore. Small town, local cops, everybody knew their parents, they figured they’d just miscounted the sisters, and let her go. Idiots.”

Pilar sighed.

“You weren’t allowed to cook because Ariadne needed you by her side,” she explained. “You were her maid of honor for a reason, Cookie. Our crew, our marriage, our family… where would we be without you? Would we even be us?”

Pilar offered Aoibheann another bite, and she didn’t take it. Pilar looked concerned. She hadn’t eaten nearly enough to be satisfied yet.

“What is it?” Pilar asked.

Aoibheann opened her mouth, thought hard, her eyes darting back and forth as though she was trying to make sense of something she couldn’t put words to.

“Aoibheann, are you… are you alright?” Pilar asked. “Should I get Sasha?”

Aoibheann shook her head vigorously. She had been lost in her depression for months, wondering if she was really better off waking up in the morning, but suddenly, the floodgates had come open, and she couldn’t wait one more second to let out what had been eating at her and destroying her soul ever since they’d lost the station.

Her voice was dry and raspy. She had not spoken more than two consecutive words in weeks, and her body vehemently protested the sudden change in this policy.

“Was it my fault?” She asked, thinking back to a conversation she'd had with their tormentor years ago. “Did I do this to us?”

****

“Excellent work today, everyone,” Cookie’s voice boomed through the kitchen. “The festivities went off without a hitch. This is an anniversary our captain won’t soon forget.”

“Thank you, Chef,” her crew echoed back.

“Dismissed,” she said to the assembled kitchen staff, and then quietly approached one of the greener pirates who’d recently started the galley rotation that was mandatory for the whole crew. “Libby, a word?”

Cookie ushered Libby into a small room at the back, which she used for prep when she was working on more intimate, personal projects. This was the room where she prepared birthday meals for Spacebreather, Ariadne, and Sasha. This was the table on which she’d painstakingly crafted Ariadne and Pilar’s wedding cake. The small walk-in freezer was the one where she’d had a brief, clumsy tryst with Blue on a rare visit to the station, after Cookie had enraged her by challenging her to a contest to see who could make a better mole negro oaxaqueño sauce, and then winning it.

Libby had been invited into the inner sanctum, and the look on Cookie’s face made it absolutely clear that it was not an honor.She was in deep trouble. Worse still, there was a salt shaker on the table in front of her.

“Do you think this is funny, lass?” Cookie asked. “Is this a fun game to you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Chef,” Libby said, actually looking somewhat convincing.

“The cap of the salt shaker was unscrewed. One shake, and dinner would’ve been ruined.” Cookie said. “It was your responsibility to set the table in the captain’s quarters.”

Libby got immediately defensive. “Anybody could’ve done that,” she said, “I didn’t do it, it’s totally unfair that you--”

“Anybody could’ve,” Cookie said. “But I gave you a responsibility. You were responsible for the Captain’s table. You signed off on a table with an unscrewed salt shaker on it. That makes you responsible for the salt shaker, whether you placed it there or not.”

“How is that fair?” Libby replied indignantly.

“Lass, why do you think Ariadne requires all crew to complete a rotation in my kitchen before they’re cleared for field service?” Cookie asked.

“She needs someone to cook for her?” Libby asked derisively.

Cookie sneered. She did not care for Libby, and never had. The girl seemed to attract drama. How, she wondered, could someone with so few friends be so perpetually in the middle of a falling out with a group of them? “And why do you think my standards are so meticulous?” Cookie asked.

Libby declined to answer, because she knew her honest answer would get her in trouble, but her face betrayed what she wanted to say: “Because you’re a huge bitch?”

Cookie answered her own rhetorical questions. “The skills you need to be successful in here, will be invaluable to you out there. You didn’t go over your loadout with a fine-toothed comb. You didn’t take the responsibilities you were trusted with seriously. You allowed your crewmates to operate with faulty equipment, that, had I not intervened, would’ve caused the mission objective to fail.”

“To be clear,” Libby said, “the ‘mission’ was serving them dinner.”

“IN HERE IT’S DINNER,” Cookie bellowed, her eyes full of all the rage and fire that she kept tamped down in her heart every second of every day, and slammed her fists on the table, knocking down the salt shaker. The chrome lid clattered off, and salt spilled onto the teak countertop. Cookie wordlessly grabbed a pinch of it and tossed it over her left shoulder. “In here, you fail in your duties and it means dinner isn’t very good that night. Out there, you fail in your duties and your sisters in arms die. That’s why Ariadne makes you work with me before you’re allowed to work for her. You can’t be trusted to handle the stakes out there if your team, and your commanding officer, can’t even trust you to do your job correctly when the stakes are only whether tonight’s chicken will be a little dry. Is that crystal clear?”

Libby looked as though she was about to protest, or accuse Cookie of being melodramatic, but Cookie cut her off. “Think very carefully about what you say next,” she said, “and if you’re lost as to what answer I’m looking for...” She pointed at the band that she kept tied around her head, so that even if one of her brilliant red hairs slipped out of its tight bun, it would still not fall into her face. It was white, and said, in bold black text, “YES CHEF.”

Libby grumbled. “Yes, chef,” she said. “next time, I’ll check the table settings more carefully.”

“Glad to hear it,” Cookie said. “But I think it’s important that you know… I know you put the shaker on the table.”

“What?!” Libby snapped.

“If the Captain, or her first mate, were to be poisoned, I would need to be able to verify who’d done the deed.” Cookie said. “Every step of my meal preparation is accounted for. There is a record of every action taken in this kitchen, cupboard-to-table. If something goes wrong with a meal, within seconds I will be able to identify the point of failure and exactly who was responsible for preventing it. Of course, it helps to have a private video feed into the captain’s quarters.”

Cookie tossed her communications device onto the table, and hit play. It projected a small, but surprisingly clear, hologram of Libby setting the table, smirking as though struck with an idea, and unscrewing the cap of the salt shaker.

“You have… a security camera… in their quarters?!” Libby asked.

“I’m the only person in the system they trust with it,” Cookie said. “I trust them with my life, and they trust me with theirs. Now, I gave you a chance to confess to your little prank, and you decided to lie, to pass the buck onto someone else. I’m afraid I can’t let that slide. I’ll have to fail you for this rotation. Come back at the start of the next one and you can reapply.”

“What?!” Libby snapped again. “I’m two days away from finishing! I have to start my galley rotation over again just because you caught me playing a harmless prank on your little pervy peep-show?”

“Call it pervy if you like,” Cookie said dismissively. “The nature of my relationship with the captain and her first mate is enthusiastically sanctioned and is, frankly, none of your concern. The behavior you showed in here, would’ve only spoiled Captain Ariadne’s dinner. If you showed the same level of carelessness and irreverence out there, it might’ve gotten someone killed. ‘Harmless’ indeed. You’re not responsible enough for field work until you can prove you can handle kitchen duty.”

“This is bullshit,” Libby said, gathering up her things to storm out of the room. “Like it even matters whether that bitch’s little dinner is ruined.”

Cookie slammed her fists on the counter again.

“Captain Ariadne is the greatest woman who ever lived,” Cookie growled, “and if I hear you speak of her like that in my presence again, you’ll lose a hell of a lot more than your galley rotation.”

Libby moved to storm out, but Cookie rushed the door and held it shut.

“Now, you listen to me, you little twerp,” Cookie said, jabbing a finger into Libby’s chest, shaking with anger. “That woman pulled me out of the gutter-- pulled all of us out of the gutter. There is nothing more important than the work she does, and we are the beating heart that allows her to do it. So if you want to be a part of this crew, you’ll show her some goddamned respect and start taking your work fucking seriously.”

Libby looked furious.

“What do I want to hear?” Cookie asked pointedly.

Pilar was astonished. “You think… because you were hard on the Nameless in her galley rotation… that she went totally off the rails, tried to kill us, and drove us out of our home?”

“Yes, chef,” Libby grumbled after a beat, and Cookie allowed her to pass.

****

“She tried to say we were like a cult,” Cookie said weakly. “That we were just minions blindly following Ariadne’s orders. That we turned against anybody who didn’t fall in line.”

“Is any of that true?” Pilar asked rhetorically. “Does the crew actually act like that?”

Cookie let the tears come. “I do,” she said. “What if she… how do I know she isn’t holding my devotion, my zeal, against the entire crew?”

“You… blindly follow Ariadne’s orders?” Pilar asked, entirely rhetorically. “That’s a surprise, I thought you really believed in our mission.”

Cookie was taken aback. “I do!’

Pilar smiled. “There’s some of that fire,” she said. “I’ve missed it. Aoibheann… when is the last time Ariadne actually gave you an order?”

Cookie had to think about this, but came up short.

“Exactly,” Pilar said. “This is what’s been eating you, all this time?”

Aoibheann looked afraid to reply, so she just asked what she’d wanted to ask, ever since they were driven out of their home.

“Do you forgive me?” She asked. “Does she… does she forgive me?”

Pilar looked Aoibheann square in the eyes. “Cookie, you’ve never needed our forgiveness. An insane terrorist attacked our home. There’s nothing you could’ve done to prevent that.”

This was not what Aoibheann wanted to hear.

Pilar sighed. “Of course we forgive you, Aoibheann,” she said in a voice that sounded entirely earnest, but using words that betrayed how sarcastic she was being: “for not allowing someone who turned out to be a sexual predator and an actual serial killer tamper with our food and ruin our anniversary. We forgive you for being the most devoted friend we’ve ever had. Because someone else mistreated us, it must’ve been wrong that you treated us right. We will always forgive you for loving us, Aoibheann. You will never lose our forgiveness for that.”

Aoibheann was struck speechless again.

“Don’t go quiet on me,” Pilar said affectionately, “I just got you to talk again! I’ve missed your voice.”

“I appreciate your taking care of me,” Cookie admitted, “while I’ve been… not myself.”

Pilar gently put her hand on Aoibheann’s, and gave it a squeeze, and then told her the most reassuring truth she had.

“The Nameless is a user,” she said. “She wants a bunch of people who act like puppets and put her well-being first. Ariadne spends every second of every day encouraging her crew to think and act for themselves, and to put each other’s well-being above all else. That’s why she thinks Ariadne’s a tyrant. Not because you defended her honor after a sociopath tried to ruin her anniversary and then called her a bitch.”

Aoibheann felt as though she’d just received absolution for something that had been dragging her through the muck for months. How could she not believe Pilar, of all people? She began to cry openly.

“Hey, hey,” Pilar said, “it’s okay! I got you.”

“I’ve let the crew down,” she said, “had them eating this flavorless mush for however many months. I’ll be back at a stove first thing in the morning, don’t you worry--”

Pilar laughed. “Aoibheann… Cookie, I’m glad you’re back but… don’t push yourself too hard, okay? Let your apprentices handle it for a bit. Besides, you haven’t walked by yourself in a pretty long time. It’ll take a bit before you’re seaworthy again, let alone fit to run a kitchen.”

Aoibheann looked downcast. “Well, I’ve spent enough time sitting around like a lump being no good to anybody,” she said indignantly.

“You’re plenty good to us,” Pilar said flatly, “just by being here. We love you, Cookie. You don’t need to… justify your existence by being a devoted servant.”

Aoibheann was uncomfortable with this sentiment, and it showed on her face. This was, after all, how she showed her affection for Ariadne and Pilar. How could she show them her love and devotion without being able to cook for them?

“I don’t know how to…” Cookie began. “Please… Please, just… tell me what to do.”

Pilar sighed. She knew Cookie was far too devoted to her duties to go completely without orders. “She and I will be back in a few hours, for dinner. Let her hear your voice. Tell her you love her, and wish her luck on her procedure. If you have the strength, give her a hug. And, most importantly, just… please, be okay. Be kind to yourself and take all the time you need to get back on your feet. We’ve only got the one Cookie, so take care of her for us, okay?”

Cookie smiled, and squeezed Pilar’s hand back with what little strength she could muster.

Pilar picked up the now-empty tray that the MRE had been on. “Now that you’re back, do I have your permission to start up the kitchens? Let your apprentices do some real cooking?”

Cookie nodded her head.

“Then I guess this is truly an event worth of celebration: you’ve had your last Meal-Ready-To-Eat,” Pilar laughed. “I’ll see you tonight, Cookie. I want to put some meat back on your bones, so I’ll be cooking, and I expect you to be looking over my shoulder and barking orders at me the whole time.”

Cookie looked at her and smiled, and Pilar’s heart melted. It had been a long time since anyone had seen that.

****

Cookie’s apprentices stood in a straight line at the back of the Hotpot Spot, an abandoned restaurant that Sweettalk had identified as her childhood favorite. Cookie, wearing the chef’s coat she’d fled the station in, freshly laundered, and her trademark “YES CHEF” headband, limped into the restaurant, supported by a cane that Sweettalk had fished out of her childhood home, and said had belonged to her grandfather.

Cookie was still not back to full strength, but her apprentices could see the fire they’d come to fear and love had returned to her eyes.

“As you may have noticed,” Cookie announced, the natural loudness of her voice undiminished by her time indisposed, “I have been… unwell, of late. As such, I am unable to resume my duties at this time.”

Her staff turned to her chief apprentice, Yellow, for guidance. Yellow remained silent, so the rest of them did as well.

“It’s alright, kids,” she said, stamping the cane on the ground loudly. “You don’t have to pretend. I’m not my old self yet. It’s fine. I wouldn’t feel right resuming my post here anyhow. This isn’t my kitchen. I’ve called you all here because you are the apprentices most equipped to run a kitchen of your own.”

Yellow nodded in assent.

“As such, I have a new directive for each of you, until such time as we’ve retrieved my kitchen, and I’m back to my usual vim and vigor, each of you is to select one of the defunct restaurants in this town, take your pick of the remaining staff and any available volunteers, and you will run your kitchens to the standard I have taught you.”

Cookie sighed.

“I know what you all think,” she said. “I know what you’ve said to me, in the past. You think your best is only a pale imitation of my cooking. But I need you all to know that… isn’t true.”

“Chef?” Yellow asked.

“I was the fourth person on this crew, lass,” Cookie said. “The first person to join, after the founding members. At the beginning, we had one mission: Keep Sasha Fed. There is nothing I value more highly than that mission. I live for it, and if I’m blessed with the chance, I will happily die for it. We may have expanded the definition of ‘Sasha’ to include everyone we love, but this mission is and will always be my life’s labor. Food doesn’t just sustain us. It is love, in physical form. The Captain and the First Mate have been very gracious to me, in the time we’ve known each other, by allowing me to show them my love and devotion in the way I’m able to offer. Over the last nine months, they have shown me the devotion was not one-sided, and given me the love I was able to accept. So your mission is, as it always has been: get in the kitchen, and show your love to the crew. Fill their bowls with it, in the way only you can, with or without me. And when your cup is empty…”

Cookie choked up a bit, and did a halfway decent job masking it.

“...When your cup is empty, allow those who love you to fill it back up, until you’re ready to pour from it again.”

After a long, uncomfortable beat, her crew shouted back “Yes, Chef!”

“I have been derelict in my duties,” Cookie said. “I let you go this many months without loving one another properly, because you wouldn’t do it without me.”

“Chef, permission to speak freely?” One of her younger apprentices, a quiet young boy who specialized in pastries, piped up.

“Granted,” Cookie said.

“You never ordered us not to run the kitchens without you. In fact, before…” He paused carefully, then opted to leave it unsaid, “before, you always taught us how to take the lead for the rest of the crew, when you had to cook for the Captain’s table. We wouldn’t run the kitchens without your say-so because…”

“It’s okay, lad, no need to be scared of the likes of me,” she reassured him.

“We were ordered not to,” he told her. “The Captain was very clear: ‘There’s no crew without Cookie.’”

Cookie leaned on her cane and looked a bit sad.

“She couldn’t handle it, Chef,” Yellow explained. “Knowing somebody else was doing your work, while you were suffering the way you were.”

Now Cookie could feel her heart melt. “She said that, did she?”

The young baker boy winced. “She said that there’s nothing more important than the work you do, and that everything the crew does, is just so you can do it,” he said. “She said… well, she said she was derelict in her duty to you, and that she couldn’t replace you until she’d made it right. Until you’d forgiven her for letting you down.”

Cookie laughed. “We’ve known each other a long time, indeed,” she said. “The captain is a sentimental one, I’m afraid. She blames herself for all this. For my condition. Don’t tell her I said this, but she’s still more Catholic than she’d like to admit.”

Everyone’s eyes flared at this. Of course none of them would tell her she’d said that, as they all valued keeping their heads attached to their necks too much. Cookie was one of the only people in the system who could get away with saying something like that in front of Ariadne.

“She could never let me down if she tried,” Cookie said, “and even if she did, I will always forgive her. That you can repeat to her. Now, that’s enough prattling on from an old fool. You all have restaurants to open. To work!”

“Yes, Chef!” Her apprentices all shouted, and broke formation to claim their restaurants.

“And remember,” she shouted after them. “If you talk to the Captain, this was her idea!”

She had, in fact, passed her forgiveness along to Ariadne the previous day, before her surgery, and assured her that she didn’t need forgiveness, the same way Pilar had done to her. After her procedure, Ariadne wouldn’t remember Cookie giving her consent to reopen the kitchens, but she was delighted that when she came out of it, she seemingly remembered, on some level, that she had been absolved of all wrongdoing.

She was relieved when, during the fight Alicia staged with her, Ariadne had suggested they put her apprentices to work in the kitchens. Despite being set back several months, she was done punishing herself, and letting everyone else punish themselves with her. It was a do-over many were not fortunate enough to get, and after all she’d lost, Aoibheann was not one to turn her nose up at a second chance.

****

Months later, when all this was over and Sasha’s medicine and a lot of good eating had restored her muscles into mostly proper working order-- she still felt uneasy at times, and preferred to keep the cane on hand, just in case-- they were repatriated to their home, the Nameless had been defeated, and the station had erupted into a celebratory frenzy. Yellow and the kitchen staff had burned the candle at both ends to supply enough party snacks to keep anyone from drowning in all the wine. Two former crew members, Baltimore and Beam, had returned to the station to join in the celebrations. Sweettalk and Sasha had, believing themselves slick, pulled Ghostrunner and her new girlfriend Vigil back to their quarters. Alicia had brought Blue back to the station and, in the haze of wine, loudly announced her intention to start a relationship with her, before disappearing back to her own quarters. Cookie and Blue had, despite their past rivalry, a deep, abiding respect for one another, and Blue was one of the few people who was authorized to do as she pleased in the kitchen. Cookie knew firsthand that after Blue’s enthusiastic and athletic lovemaking, she would likely need something to eat, and a bit more wine, so she’d set a bottle of red and a bowl of fresh mozzarella in conspicuous locations in the hopes that she would find them. Cookie was, uncharacteristically, not in the kitchen that night.

If she had learned anything from the past year, it was that she had to sometimes set the weight of the world down, and allow the people she loved to take care of her as much as she took care of them. So, as had become tradition, once per month, she would retire to the Captain’s quarters instead of her own, and allow her friends to show them how much they loved her. Pilar spent the day marinating meats, just the way Cookie had taught her, and Ariadne had built a heating element into her personal dining table so that Pilar could cook them some of Cookie’s favorite foods.

They would then retire to the bedroom for a night of passion-- Ariadne always had some new device she’d built and wanted to show off. Being married to Spacebreather, she was in the unfortunate position of being a bit of a pillow princess, but not on pillow principle, and so never had anyone else to use it on, and Cookie was the only person other than Ariadne who Spacebreather was willing to touch. They would spend this time laughing, and experimenting, and making sure not an inch of her, or the captain, went unkissed, and then they would fall asleep in each other’s arms, all the while gossiping and reminiscing the way they had back on Mars.

Sometimes, on these nights, Cookie would think back to what Spacebreather said to her, during her episode, about how if she ever wanted something more between them, she could have it.

The thing was, she didn’t want something more. She treasured these nights they had together, but as far as she was concerned, nothing had changed about what they were to her. They were her best friends, and they were her calling in life. She would, to the best of her ability, serve their mission with almost religious zeal. Even unto her death, she would prioritize keeping her loved ones happy and healthy. She had already loved them, more, she believed, than she could ever love anyone else, even when they had started an exclusive relationship with one another, and she was just a heartbroken teenager pining after them both. How could she want something more, when she couldn’t even imagine something better than what she already had?

The first time the three of them had ever fallen into bed together, years after Ariadne and Pilar had made it clear they were soulmates, they had been a ball of teenage hormones, propelled by a raunchy party game that had gotten a bit out of hand. Aoibheann had awoken mortified and furious at herself for daring to succumb to her own desires like this. Her whole life, whenever she’d allowed herself to love something, it was taken away, and that only when she accepted that something was beyond her grasp, would she stand a chance of being lucky enough to attain it. She was sure that by admitting to her wants, and acting on them, she had ruined everything. Except, Ariadne and Pilar noticed her embarrassment and simply chose to behave as though nothing had changed. It had happened only occasionally in the past, and each time, Ariadne and Pilar would wait for Cookie to bring it up. Otherwise, it was completely unspoken.

The one crucial difference was, now, Aoibheann “Cookie” Gyeong, once the saddest girl on Mars, had finally accepted that it was okay to want, and to act on those wants, that this was not following the goblin lights to her death as her mother had. She, who loved her life so much that she shut down for the better part of a year when she feared it had changed irreparably, spent most of her time refusing to acknowledge what she loved about it. She did her job, showed her love, and asked for nothing in return except for the ability to keep doing it.

“You know,” Ariadne said, running her fingers through Aoibheann’s long, smooth, bright red hair, as a sleeping Pilar cradled them both in her arms, “we don’t do any of this for you. We do it because we like doing it. It’s fun for us.”

Cookie laughed. “Oh, I hadn’t noticed,” she quipped.

Ariadne smiled, and told her something she’d waited years to be sure Cookie would be ready to hear. “Thank you,” she said, “for being my friend. For loving me. For making what we do worth it.”

Aoibheann shot a smile right back. “I could say the same to you.”

[farenmaddox]

Fic: nobody said it was easy Fandom: Supernatural Status: Complete, 10k Rating: T and up Pairing: Castiel/Dean, significant amounts of Sam & Cas friendship Summary: After the events of 11x23, Dean and Mary miss Cas at the bunker by a mere few minutes. Cas goes to rescue Sam from the BMoL and brings in a few allies to help, meanwhile Dean has no idea anything is wrong and just thinks it’s taking them a while to get home. After Sam’s rescue, Castiel and Sam talk, and grieve. When they do go home, Dean and Cas’s reunion goes a bit differently. a.k.a. Cas Widower Arc

Excerpt: (under read more)

Castiel strode back into the bunker at 5:34 am, his blade ready in hand for round two—he was prepared, this time, and was certain he could throw the blade into someone’s chest before they managed to touch the sigil—only to find no one there.

“Sam?” he yelled out.

A ticking noise from the generator was the only answer. The banishment sigil was still there, on the wall, and there was a pool of blood on the ground near it. Castiel dabbed his finger into the blood, and tasted. Mostly human, faintly demonic: it was definitely Sam’s. The woman clearly knew them pretty well if she had laid a trap for them that accounted for angelic presence, but Sam seemed to have been able to put up some kind of a fight.

Castiel told Dean he was going to look out for Sam. He was doing a great job of that so far. Less than a day and he’d already lost him.

No, he cut himself off, he couldn’t think that way right now. It was nothing but a distraction. He had to keep his thoughts organized. Sam had been taken, and Castiel needed to find him. Just to be absolutely certain, he conducted a full search of the bunker, calling out periodically. It felt like a waste of time, but it would be far worse to just leave without checking if it turned out that he was badly injured and hiding somewhere.

When Castiel was satisfied the bunker was truly empty, he turned his thoughts to how he would even begin to find his friend. Sam was normally the one who had the best ideas on finding people, so Castiel tried to imagine what he would do in this instance. He would interview the people in Lebanon to see if any of them remembered seeing a blond British woman. Castiel was off-putting and not good at interviews, but he knew a few of the people in this town by now from periodic missions to retrieve beer or takeout for the boys, so maybe he could manage it. But what Sam would be trying to find out was where she might have said she was going, and what kind of vehicle she was driving. Oh, of course—Sam would use the computer to look for her vehicle.

Castiel stared at Sam’s laptop. The laptop stared back.

Castiel reached into his pocket and retrieved from his wallet the slip of paper with the phone number he had, thus far, been too much of a coward to use. He walked over to one of the old rotary phones that Sam and Dean had told him was disconnected. Maybe humans couldn’t use it anymore, but Castiel certainly could. He let a fizzle of grace chase down his fingers as he entered the phone number, and listened to the call connect. If only Dean and Sam could have been there to see it and do the thing with their mouths and eyebrows that meant they were impressed. These mundane uses of his grace were only fun when he had an audience.

“It is six in the morning, this had better be damn good,” a voice groaned into the phone.

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[anguishedlurker]

Don't Shoot; It's me! No, the other guy! (#38, fake body swap)

HI Y'ALL welcome to my ecto-imposion fic! I'm the writer of course and my wonderful artist was @astravis , and @thesilentbard plus @dragonsdomain he;ped me out with betaing! Check them all out! Buckle up, because this is just the first chapter! And maybe look at the ao3 posting

Of things Danny should have predicted, Skulker and Technus teaming up one day was going to land pretty high on the list.

It all started so normal, too! Getting multiple ghosts at once wasn’t uncommon anymore, and Skulker appearing? Must be a day that ends with Y.

Technus, though...

“I’ll pelt you yet, whelp!” Skulker bellowed, having been ineffectually brained with the remains of a lamppost.

Technus was thusly absorbing the lamppost's remains into his suit, adding yet another object that would qualify as a taser in the right circumstances.

“AND I, TECHNUS, WILL USE THIS OPPORTUNITY TO-”

“No, really, do you ever shut up?!” Danny cut him off, meanwhile diving behind the remains of- ooohhh this was that vegan place Sam liked. He was going to hear about this one for weeks.

“Your disrespect remains immeasurable, child.” Skulker growled, not wasting time in obliterating what was left of the building.

“YEAH, WHAT IS HE? CHOPPED LIVER?”

Danny didn’t pay this mind, throwing some potshots at the both of them as he skittered away for new cover.

“He’s a mecha pain in my- AAA”

We interrupt this smart comment for debris! Debris; A mark of your failure to protect.

Debris wasn’t a new threat, but regardless? That was going to bruise.

Danny was ready to punch them to paste barehanded if it’d get this fight to stop. Skulker already had a weapon making shield borderline painful to maintain against blasts, and with Technus in tow couldn’t be trusted to not get a random power-boost.

Meaning this needed to end, now!

However, “now” would have to be sometime after Technus’s blasts stopped slapping him down like an especially annoying kitten.

“Ah, finally showing cowardice whelp?” Skulker taunted, lazily aiming one of his guns as Danny darted somewhere over an alleyway.

“I prefer to call it intelligence!”

“RUNNING WILL NOT HELP YOU HERE, PEST!” Technus borderline giggled.

Clearly, Danny thought as a piece of roof exploded behind him.

… That one might’ve been that weirdo occult shop that was trying to set up without him noticing. Couldn’t say he’d miss it, if nothing else.

It was really starting to look like “damage control” meant doing some damage himself to cut this short.

He was absolutely going to hear it from Sam once he was done here, as it wasn’t like ecto-ice was easy to clean up. (God knows what's IN that Danny!)

Somewhere in the distance the Fenton GAV wailed, a bad sign for all participants.

So… one shot to do this, maybe two… Eh. He’s had worse odds before!

One last sacrificial rubble pile to buy a second, aaand-

“I DO BELIEVE WE MUST CUT THIS ONE SHORT! SKULKER, IF YOU WOULD?”

“It's a pleasure to use this new toy.”

Danny didn’t even get time to throw an icicle at them.

The rubble exploded, and then Danny exploded, flung across the street like a sack of potatoes and making several things give an upsetting crack on landing.

Screw bruising at this point, he’d be lucky if all of this managed to heal before Monday.

Note to self: Never ever let Technus Skulker pair up ever again.

“FASCINATING RESULTS!” Technus beamed as Danny groaned his way onto his feet.

“Your move, whelp.” Skulker growled, gun pointed at Danny.

“That little toy? Ha, it barely even-!”

And see, there’s many things about Danny’s powers that would never be properly explained to his friends. How intrinsic they all were by now, above all else.

A running start and pathetic hop into the air didn’t actually mean much for flying; by all accounts Danny could go from zero to sixty in a standing position.

So, the raw humiliation of that pathetic hop- intended to be a full assault launch- landing him in a kneeling position took a second to process.

It was just so impossible.

The metal on Skulkers helm twisted to a smile as the gun gave a shrill whine.

Technus giggled as he absorbed a car into his already overburdened monstrosity of a mech, clearly thinking this fight was done.

The GAV siren had never been so loud.

There was really only one choice: Run. Run for his life.

The street lit up behind him, adrenaline carrying him much faster than he had any right to be on foot.

“RUNNING AGAIN, WHELP?” Technus shouted, much too close for Danny’s liking.

“That’s Skulker’s thing!” He shouted back, at a total loss for anything witty.

“I’ve done no such thing as run, child!”

“I THINK HE MEANS THE TERM WHELP.”

Oh good, yes! Get distracted!

“Your thievery of my vocabulary will not go unpunished; yet, for now, we have our prey-”

“UNPUNISHED? WE ARE ALLIES! TO RAISE YOUR HAND IN VIOLENCE AGAINST ME NOW WOULD-”

“Not right now you imbecilic-”

The blasts behind him were slowing down immensely already, buying him a slide around a corner with enough lead to shove himself between buildings.

Still, even with this he wasn’t exactly well hidden.

His options, in this fine back alley, were… A broken mirror, two cardboard boxes, and a dumpster.

…

The dumpster was uncomfortably moist as he shoved himself in and closed the top, and the smell- is this the nasty burger dumpster??

Slowly the town map in his head adjusted. Eugh… Desperation carried him farther than he thought.

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE’VE LOST HIM!?”

“The shot must have suppressed his signature. The tracker will be borderline worthless unless we are on top of him.”

Oh, good! Truly, a fair trade for his powers! And once he was done being sarcastic, probably the single blessing he’d get out of this.

“I WOULD CALL THAT EVEN LESS THAN BORDERLINE.”

“Your worthless insistence on semantics is duly noted.”

The bickering continued into the distance, followed shortly by the GAV wailing and his father pointedly screaming.

“Rotten ghosts, molecule by molecule would be too good for you!”

“Phantoms not re-appearing on the radar, but keep an eye out regardless. Who knows what cloaking tactics it’s come up with this time. To the right!” His mom warned, getting fainter and fainter (in the wrong direction) as the GAV sped after Technus and Skulker. Or wherever the altered signal was leading them.

One would think it’d only work the once...

Danny was left to contemplate the situation in silence. Nothing would get done in the dumpster, sure, but hey, uncomfortably moist? More like comfortably hidden.

But beyond that being cowards talk, he reeaallly couldn’t sit there and trust that his parents or even Valerie would pull through on this one.

Okay, well, first task; Phase out of the dumpster.

An action that should be on the same level as ‘flex your jaw’, and yet, Danny was no less uncomfortably moist in sauce juice by the end of his attempt.

The whole thing was unpleasantly reminiscent of the Fenton crammer, minus the shrinking. Powers suffocated to the vaguest wisps in the back of his skull, borderline hallucinations to his futile attempts to use them.

Still stuck in the dumpster, Danny mentally conceded to plan B; Phone a friend.

Tucker was, unfortunately, out at a tech event for the weekend. Which meant it needed to be Sam.

Sam, who was stuck appeasing her parents today in exchange for the stunt with Ms. Hoffman last week.

Somewhere in the distance shots sounded off, indicating that someone had found his two enemies.

Danny didn’t have high hopes as he popped open the dumpster lid and shakily dialed. First of all it’d require Sam to already be out of the dreaded social situation, and secondly it’d mean he got a stroke of good luck if she picked up either way.

His anxiety collapsed to resignation as the ring tone meandered on, leaving him to ignore the layers of irony and humor in his ringtone having been changed to Mystery Skulls’ Ghost.

Pink blasts flashed in the sky from somewhere distant, meaning either Vlad got involved or Valerie had shown up- one more likely than the other.

“Hi! If you don’t know who this is, you shouldn’t have called anyways, and if you do and I didn’t pick up then I’m ignoring you specifically and your voicemail better give me a good reason to call back. And Tucker, if that’s you, I’m not paying for that. You know I’m not. Stop asking. Leave a message after the-”

Danny didn’t wait any longer to hang up. No voicemail would ever be secure enough to risk actually leaving one, and leaving one wouldn’t even speed up the response time.

An especially bright pink and green flash washed over what was probably half the town, and a large crash sounded from several different points in the area.

Now down the phone a friend option, Danny elected to revisit and modify plan A by throwing his leg over the side of the dumpster instead.

You know, the lame way to exit.

None of his bones liked him as he hit the ground, the wind in his metaphorical sails really not keeping up with what he needed to be doing.

Even with the self deprecation heavily suppressed, the situation didn’t really brighten outside of the dumpster. How, precisely, would boxes aide him here? Box Ghost was still pretty peeved over the whole cardboard-boxes-dissolve-in-water solution...

A thoughtless attempt to transition between forms left a suspiciously glass-like popping noise to ring in his ears and leave him fallen face-first onto the ground.

The most intact piece of mirror sat across him, dimly processing as unsafe for workers to be near as the gerbil controlling intelligent thought in his head took a smoke break.

… Seriously, why not have just tossed the thing into the dumpster itself? It’s right there!

The gerbil returned from its smoke break as Danny took in his reflection somewhat, the wheel powering his thoughts creaking back to life.

The crammer had slowly stripped him of every Phantom attribute until only Fenton remained, while right now the present cause to all his woes seemed to have merged his clothes straight down to his hoodie and left every other feature untouched.

It was… weird.

And deeply irrelevant, actually. He needed to either try calling Jazz (ugh) or haul himself home to see if he can’t glue a solution together (different ugh).

Time to shove himself back up to kneeling and pick the gravel out of his teeth (hrng).

While he was at it, it might be a good idea to start a list of cameras that’d need their footage wiped. Even if Fenton’s clothes weren’t incriminating he just didn’t need-

There was an ecto gun by his head, the safety giving a click as it was turned off.

“Would you like to beg?”

He knew that voice- by god did he know that voice. Valerie had to be on that hoverboard just out of his field of view.

He had to have missed some sort of movement while slumped forward by the mirror- it’s not like he wasn’t in enough pain for reality to start blurring.

But that didn’t help, did it? Because he was readily identifiable as Phantom to a girl who wanted half of him dead(er), with zero powers or wit to throw at the situation that wouldn’t just get him shot faster.

But what would help!? She didn’t have any interest in listening to Phantom, barely had any in listening to Fenton, though her lethal intent would at least be lower!

Somehow, someway, the gerbil in his head clipped through the wheel's geometry and resolved to never return.

“Don’t shoot, Val, it’s me! Danny!”

The gun got MUCH louder in response

“Well, Danny Phantom, I think knowing my name-”

“N-No! Fenton!”

He could hear the dial-up noises in Valerie's head, he himself stuck on trying to process how royally he just screwed himself over.

“Let’s suppose, for just one second here, that I don’t believe that.”

“L-look Val, belief doesn’t have much to do with the fact that I’m like, super harmless right now. Literally what would I gain by telling you that?”

He could feel her eyes stare even harder, dissecting his identity in this new light.

“Time.”

Well, he had a good run…

The alleyway promptly exploded, leaving Valerie to skitter off to who knows where as she swore worse than any adult Danny had had the displeasure of listening to.

Danny himself was left hyperventilating in the dust, promptly hopping back into the dumpster and burying himself in the worst effort towards hiding he’s probably ever managed.

“I TOLD YOU IT WOULD BE HIGHLY UNLIKELY FOR HIM TO HAVE HIDDEN HERE.”

“Disappointing, and unexpected. The chase is far more important, but what distracted her?”

“I DO NOT BELIEVE THIS TO MATTER. YOU MAY HAVE SAID PRACTICALLY ON TOP, BUT I THINK AT THIS POINT IN THE ALLEY IT’S SAFE TO SAY HE’S NOT-”

“Move it or lose it, socket-licker. One of our high value targets is running.”

“YOU ARE ONE TO TALK, SHORTSTOCK. INSULTS ASIDE, I WAS GETTING THERE.”

Skulker’s “No, you weren’t. And you’re lucky we’re working together you-” got fainter as the two continued to completely miss his idiot self hidden just under the surface of two tonnes of food slime.

This was now the second time Danny was in the same dumpster, and honestly? He STILL didn’t want to leave!

He couldn’t cave to the desire this time either- trying to out his identity to Valerie in a last ditch effort to save his hide was officially going to go down as one of his dumbest decisions ever.

He couldn’t even think of anything funny his friends would mock him with this time. It was stupid all the way down.

Feet to the ground, eyes peeled for enemies- gone for now.

Time to unbend his pride and beat his mile run record while trying to call Jazz. Hey, multitasking!

He was going to lose his mind over this one. Even without his personal missteps this was bad.

“Hi, this is Jasmine Fenton! Hopefully I can get back to you soon, but for now, please leave a message after the-”

Click.

Two options, he pondered as he did a running slide past the corner grocery store.

One: Jazz was doing tutoring and had her phone off.

Or, possibly, two: Their parents loaded her onto the GAV and didn’t take no for an answer.

He didn’t hear her earlier trying to scream advice in an attempt to circumvent the danger their parents posed to everyone, but was it even a Tuesday for her to be busy with tutoring? Or maybe she does tutoring on Thursdays…

None of it mattered obviously. He had to get to Fenton Works ASAP.

There wasn’t strictly much that could help him, but he couldn’t imagine anything going even more wrong by using the splitter to try and get some part of him functioning again.

At worst, he’d have two people to drive the Speeder so he/they could gun it to Frostbite and see what could medically be done.

This totally didn’t gloss over every logistic and science issue ever, no sir!

And even if it did, what kind of options was he supposed to come up with right now!?

One more cut through an alleyway and Danny was in the home stretch towards Fenton works.

This moment was of course the same one a massive crash and crunch of metal sounded off a block away. Maximum.

Before he’d had the saving grace of a hiding spot. Now? Not so much! All it’d take was for Skulker or Technus to remember that they could fly above buildings and-

Well there went his survival odds!

The second after, Valerie flew above their heads, shooting down at them even as they launched onto his street.

And, for as distracting as she was, he couldn’t say his odds just got any higher.

Danny nearly took the door off its hinges trying to get in faster than anything could shoot at him, barely in before the street was awash in pink and green.

Just because he knew he couldn’t get blamed for this (mostly) didn’t mean the sense that he was so dead over this stopped creeping in.

“I, TECHNUS, WOULD LIKE TO REMIND YOU THAT-” Technus screamed, caving the door in with a broken lamppost, Technus himself soon followed suit, seeming to have shed most of his mecha well before the door- though he was losing more in an effort to get in with ease.

“If this is about the extended car warranty-!” Danny shouted back, trying to bolt for the basement. Or literally any of the house defense buttons- screw that they’d target him too!

“I WOULD NEVER SINK TO SUCH LEVELS, PEST!” Technus cut him off, the severed mecha parts bursting into and spreading wires and metal throughout the house in seconds.

Skulker didn’t waste time squeezing through besides Technus, grinning even as he was focused solely on the street outside.

“The basement.” Was all Skulker said before the option was gone from him, tangled in too much metal and wire to ever think about it again.

Danny wasn’t going to get time to think about this one, bolting upstairs instead as the door frame exploded into pink.

“All of you-”

Valerie interrupted herself with a gunshot to Technus.

“, rat bastards! No respect for-”

Skulker, now.

“anyone or anything! This is a house!”

Danny, now. He could feel it burn through both his shirt and suit even as he passed the last few steps to the second story.

Thank god for adrenaline.

Dashing down the hall as Technus and Skulker both roared into action, he performed the best running leap he’d ever managed to grab and pull the chain for the ladder.

Of course, having leapt for this privilege in a house meant for his dad meant he kept sailing through the air as the ladder slammed down behind him.

That was fine! Valerie was still distracted, just roll and climb! So easy.

So easy to corner himself on a roof with no options except to jump if he wanted off.

The fight continued on beneath him as he stared over the side, his world totally silent otherwise.

Grasping for inane details in the hopes one would matter, he saw nothing of use.

The day was bright, and clear. The town was quiet. If he turned slightly, he could pretend the wake of destruction didn’t exist.

But then he’d be ignoring the wires spilling out his front door, a shell of a car deposited in the center of the street- seeming to host most of the mess as a battery.

Valerie swore worse than ever below.

Nothing could help him right now. He was stuck either standing or jumping.

Or well, maybe he could at least do something about the gaping wound in his side… that might be good.

Slowly and carefully he stripped his hoodie off, noting that the hole was smaller than he’d been mentally giving it credit for.

His side still dripping as he dropped it unceremoniously, he realized that this was a dumb plan and that he couldn’t do anything anyways.

His side wasn’t a spot he could tourniquet. Pressure only helped so much in ghost form, as even with bones he was notably more squishy(?) than a normal human.

The fighting paused for one brief moment, before getting ten times worse, Valerie inadvertently teaching him new slurs for ghosts.

Danny looked over the edge of the building again, reaching for his pocket with a prayer.

…

“Hi, this is Jas-”

Click.

…

“Hi! If you don’t know-”

Click.

…

…

“You have reached this 🌟Too Fine🌟 of a voice mail-”

One last click off, phone thusly tucked back into his pocket.

Danny stood alone over what was closer to a three story drop than a two story drop (stupid vaulted ceilings…), and quietly sat on the edge as the fight below went silent and stayed silent.

Hand to his side regardless of if it’d help, he watched the car-battery-wire mess power down and simply waited.

Sure, he could jump, but the adrenaline was winding back down. He was already hurt, bad, in multiple ways. Valerie could fly and right now he couldn’t. There was nowhere on the street to hide and even if there was plenty of places the street over he wouldn’t get that far.

He was dead meat any way he went.

He could hear the ladder clack behind him as Valerie hauled herself up.

“What a surprise! All nice and ready for me.” Valerie huffed, immediately standing at the ready with a gun. Danny only just copped a glance before turning back towards the view.

Odd, no suit nor hoverboard. Maybe Technus had managed to hit her just right and made it shut off.

“Yeah. They go through the portal at least?” He asked, barely looking back as he gripped his side a little tighter.

“And here I- what? Um. Yeah, to my knowledge.” Valerie stuttered slightly, the earnestness of his question seeming to trip her worse than Danny’s previous bomb drop.

“Good. Lock the portal when you go back down. My parents will probably open it up by next week, but hey! Stops everything for now.”

Her steps towards him slowed to a crawl, and he could sense the caution and the suspicion even as she continued regardless.

God, he was really doing this. It occurred that he could still just shove himself off the edge, but he couldn’t think of anything that could possibly solve. Guns can be pointed over roof edges.

“Uh. Thank. You? B-But no uh, tricks or-”

She stopped by his side, gun still pointed as her eyes tracked across the roof for the surprise that simply must be coming.

“Valerie, I’m really sorry you think I could ever hurt you, but I’m out. Injured and done. It’s you or it’s splatting on the pavement. Dunno how much bounce back I’ve got left right now.”

“Any last… uhm-”

This is a super stupid way to die. But he’s pretty sure he’ll be a grease stain if he jumps, which is even stupider.

“I guess... Tell Sam, Tucker, and Jazz not to beat themselves up over it.” He hummed, finally looking at Valerie again.

He wondered how much of this mess the town behind him was seeing.

The gun shook silently before lowering and turning away.

“You are him, aren’t you?” Valerie asked softly, gun already dropping from her hands.

The gun dropped with an uncomfortable clatter as Danny gave the least shaky and uncomfortable smile he could manage, Valerie's eyes not even seeing him as she fixated on his stained hoodie.

“Phantom was never this sweet.”

Valerie clearly hadn’t focused on the words, so lasered onto her revelation that Danny’s brief twitch was entirely missed.

He couldn’t even be insulted right now; there was a certain amount of venom their fights had always had.

Silence extended further as Valerie only barely looked back up at him, still shaken.

“Thanks, I think. But uh. What now?” Danny asked, genuinely not sure. He just had to accept that insults to his other half could be addressed later.

How a reveal would go had always haunted him slightly, and this was probably a better ending than most of the realistic ones.

But even then, those fantasies always ended when she understood.

Valerie snapped to at the question, standing straight and returning to her facade of confidence.

“Helping. How’d they even do this to you?”

“Technus made Skulker a new gun, I think. It goes downhill from there.”

Carefully, Danny slid himself back onto the roof. He was struck with the sense that sudden moves would still get him killed, somehow. This was.. Too easy, almost.

Anxiety or not, the pain was also holding him back.

“Figures that those assholes would do this. Don’t suppose there’s an obvious way to fix this?”

“Not really? I mean… there might be something in the basement to help, but outside of that it’s not like I’ve got options beyond to sit here and suffer. Maybe see if Frostbite knows anything.”

“The basement, huh… Oh, thaaat’s why Skulker growled something out about it. Maybe we can-”

The GAV started wailing again, suddenly.

The offending vehicle was only streets away, and if he focused hard enough he could almost hear his dad yelling about having fixed something or other.

Farewell pain, hello adrenaline!

He was going to be so sick after today. He could just feel it.

“Bail!” He shouted, running back towards the ladder.

“What!?”

“Do you trust my parents not to shoot on sight!?”

The look of fear was immediate.

“Oh, god! Bail!”

In total agreement it was borderline a fight for the ladder and to get down to the first floor.

The wires hadn’t disappeared, leaving them precariously stood on the mess next to the kitchen.

“What’s your plan, Danny?! It’s their house!” Valerie hissed, eyeing him and the wires cautiously.

“WINDOWS ARE ALWAYS FAIR GAME!” He screeched, launching into the kitchen.

The voice of doubt in his head pointed out that it was incredibly lame for all his best executed moves for today to be so fundamentally stupid in nature.

Regardless, lifting the stand mixer and tossing it through the back window in one single uninterrupted motion, punctuated by the shattering of glass, was probably the smoothest thing he’d do today.

“YOU COULD HAVE OPENED THE WINDOW-”

“NO WE COULDN’T HAVE!” Danny yelled back, already launching himself through the opening regardless of potential cuts.

“WHAT?” Valerie screeched back, lingering before following suit.

“The Fenton Family Home Defense System locks the windows upon activation, with or without shutter activation! Even when it turns back off they’re stuck until you do a manual unlock!”

He was already bounding through the backyard, sailing himself over the fence without a second thought.

“Danny, in what world does that make sense!?”

Valerie was close behind.

“The one where my parents designed it! And the one where you’d then be stuck in a house with more weapons than people!”

“Danny, your parents are still nuts for locking-!”

“Losing battle! Pick and choose! Keep running!”

Valerie’s laugh was clear, like bells as they continued across town.

The stress was obviously getting to her- yet it was almost infectious. This was insane!

Eventually, well after they’d gone from a residential area back to business, he was yanked into a new back alley, Valerie still grinning as she caught her breath.

“And what about the door?”

“Also locked.”

She missed a beat before speaking again.

“So, what, not even the doors work until you do a system reset? That’s stupid.”

Danny had to laugh at himself right now.

“No, I just don’t remember the passcode! That door is pretty normal.”

“But you can’t leave without a code from the inside?”

“Normal for my house!” He giggled.

They were left with wheezing laughter over a near miss that wasn’t that funny to begin with.

Eventually Valerie’s hand left his shirt collar, moving to push him back slightly. Intimacy time over.

“Okay, Danny. Your parents are nuts and we don’t trust them not to shoot. Where are we going?”

“Well I could always hide in a dumpster again, but outside of that I don’t have any ideas. Sam’s busy and Jazz… well, is it Tuesday or is it Thursday, actually?”

Valerie gave him the blankest look imaginable for his question.

“It’s Saturday.”

… Well then!

“Okay, well, Jazz is tutoring. Probably. So she’s busy.”

“And Tucker, since you seem to trust your friends with this one?”

... What?

“Uh. At a tech camp somewhere in-”

“Got it. The basement might help, you said?”

Right, back to topic.

“I cannot stress that ‘might’ part enough. We’ve got a lot of weird stuff down there that’s come in handy in really stupid ways before.”

“Okay, well, that’s not great. You got an idea on how to get your parents out of the house?”

“Not in the slightest.” He admitted, shrugging as he spoke.

“Superb. Just fantastic. Okay, maybe we could camp at my place for an hour? At least until... or. Hm.”

Valerie finally lost her focus on him, looking to the side in thought.

Danny had to give credit where it was due that they were screwed in a different way, now.

Valerie’s fast turn saved his hide so he was certainly much farther than he thought he’d get, but there wasn’t much they could throw at his parents to make them disengage with the mess of wires Technus left behind. It was now valuable research material, at best.

Delightful.

“My place is probably for the best. Christ, that’s a distance to go.” Valerie muttered.

“Not to interrupt, but yeah actually. How are we getting there? Is your suit broken, or…?”

“Broken is a strong word. It self repairs, but yes, I’m grounded right now. And though I care about you, the huntress getting seen towing Phantom would not be good.”

There it was again, slighter than before but still present. The slight dissonance in how the situation was getting viewed.

Easy to shrug and move on though, right?

He probably shouldn’t.

“So… not to-”

“Look, we need to start moving. You’ve got a hat or something?”

“Man, I wish.”

“Okay, okay… shitty question, but Phantom can fly. Obviously. What can you do right now…?”

Uh.

“Uh. Nothing? Look, the blast- I think… Sorry, but what do you think happened? I just-”

Valerie’s eyes narrowed a touch in preemptive insult.

“Calling my explanation the abridged version gives it too much credit! I just want to make sure you understand what happened, and what you’re asking??”

Best cover he could’ve used, honestly.

Valerie cringed in on herself, obviously realizing something.

“Uhm, sorry, I didn’t mean to… Look, sorry. I know being in his body is probably really weird? But my place is over in Elmerton, and it’d be really helpful if one of us could… I’m sorry.”

She’d dodged the real question, but still managed to give the answer Danny needed.

In… this body…?

Oh. Oh boy.

[roseverdict]

Writing Commissions Open!

Hey howdy hey, guess who's broke and whose brain has latched on to the idea of getting a bike or a trike to get places other than the one (1) coffee shop in walking distance!

YEP. I need to open commissions.

However, I do have at least one thing going for me- I'm told I'm fairly good at writing things! Fanfic things, at least. While I'm not dumb enough to outright go "hey, pay me to write fanfiction," I figure I can at least point out some fanfics I've written that seem to have gone over well as examples of my work, since that's most of what I've got for proof of my skills.

x x

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I'd show more, but Tumblr won't let me add more images, and even these fought me Tooth And Nail when I was trying to format them properly. Truly a functioning website.

Hopefully these kind of give an idea of the vibes I'm strongest with, too. Pricing and rules will be under the cut. I do have a target I'm trying to reach here, but depending on how well this goes, I might end up keeping commissions open indefinitely. We'll see. :D

DM me if you're interested!

Things I'm Comfortable Writing:

Original Storylines (Brief primer on the world/characters I'll be writing with will be required)

Things like the pieces shown on my AO3 account

OCs

Y/N-style pieces (both with and without the actual usage of "Y/N")

Mild Romance

Gore/Severe Injury

Body Horror

Whump

Look, if it's in the Danny Phantom phandom and basically nowhere else, I'm probably just fine writing it, despite its intensity xD

Things I Will Not Write:

Smut. There's no shame in enjoying it, I just. Don't.

Incest. Absolutely NONE. Even leaving aside the whole debate about whether or not people should ship incest ships, I would not be able to enjoy writing it, which would make the resulting work of low quality, which would be a huge waste of time for everyone involved.

Pedophilia- specifically, ships with a minor and an adult multiple years their senior. See above. 17yo x 18yo is pushing it, but depending on the circumstances, I might allow it. They aren't exactly in completely different phases of life there. However, I'm in my 20s and don't particularly want to think about or write about kids the age of my youngest brother dating people my age or older, you feel me?

Bigotry presented to the reader as a positive thing. I'm not gonna write your favorite heroic character declaring OOC that minorities are terrible people. If you want something from the POV of a character meant to be terrible, such as someone like Fire Lord Ozai in AtLA, however, I may be willing to write it.

I reserve the right to refuse any commission and not have to explain why. Person-to-person, though, this will likely only come up if someone tries to commission something that crosses these lines and refuses to acknowledge such.

Payment: 5¢ USD per word. This works out to…

$12.50 for 250 words

$25 for 500 words

$50 for 1K words

and so on.

I'll need half the payment up front as a deposit, then the rest upon completion. If, for whatever reason, I fail to write the commission, you will be refunded in full.

If you pay me for a given number of words, I will do my best to stick to it. I will make sure you at least get your money's worth, but if I just can't quite fit the writing into the given limit, I won't charge you for the extra words. Call it 100 words or so of wiggle room.

A commission for a fic 1K or larger that runs 100 words or less over the intended length will not cost extra

A commission for a fic between 500 and 999 words that runs 50 words or less over will not cost extra

A commission for a fic 499 words or below that runs 25 words or less over will not cost extra

A commission for a fic that has enough going on to run over that limit will result in me contacting you to ask for either a scaled-down plot or payment for the extra writing.

I will not consider calling a commission complete until I can hit the target wordcount at minimum.

If it should happen that I just can't make a scene stretch to the full wordcount, but you still want to keep what is written, the words that were not written will be refunded.

[littlemisssatanist]

frolicking in the flowers

ganyu x cicin mage reader

you get sent to liyue on indefinite leave. you meet a cocogoat.

well hello there. i’ve come out of my hidey hole on account of ao3 being down and me being absolutely bored out of my mind. so i went searching through my notes app bc a lot of times i’m delirious and write stuff and then forget about it and found this hidden gem (?) details below split.

it’s not finished bc there’s like three sentences that were supposed to set up the anal… and uhm if y’all want that then just like. get this to 100 likes and i’ll consider it. (but probably not idk)

details

Sub! Ganyu, Dom! Reader / Dubious consent / Aphrodisiac / Hoohaw eating 🍽

You knelt down, grabbing the flower by its stem and yanking. You brought up your arm with enough strength to take out the whole root of the flower. Dirt sprayed everywhere and you made a face.

Sighing in frustration, you sat down with a soft thump, kneading the flower stem in between your fingers. The sun was at its highest point in the sky, beating down on Liyue relentlessly.

Yes, you were in Liyue. After the fiasco in Mond, your superior had sent you to the next nation over. Except the Harbinger Childe had no need for you, and dismissed you almost immediately for a ‘break.’

So now you were stuck here for however long. It was awful.

You threw the flower away, spatting in distaste. Your neck was slick with sweat. Thank the Tsaritsa you weren’t wearing your work uniform, or else you would probably be melting in the heat.

“I want a popsicle.” You mutter.

The pink dress you were wearing had a dark green stain at the hem and you frowned, annoyance rising. What you wouldn’t do to be back in Snezhnaya.

But unless Harbinger Childe sent you away or your Lady back home asked for your presence, there was nothing to be done.

“I might as well do something fun.” You muse, squinting your eyes as you tried to block off the incoming headache. “Don’t want to waste away…”

The sound of hilichurls caught your attention. Your head snapped in their direction, ears listening intently.

They didn’t seem to be in your immediate vicinity, but you didn’t want to stay near a hilichurl camp at all, especially in your tired state (who knew that doing nothing at all could be so exhausting?)

You got to you feet, dusting off your dress. It did nothing to help.

“Eeep!”

You froze. Then you sighed again, stomping your foot on the ground. How annoying. You couldn’t just leave a defenseless civilian to die by hilichurl, could you? Even the Fatui had their limits (except for maybe the Harbingers. They had no limits, they were all crazy).

But you had limits. Especially if it was a civilian who did nothing wrong, or tried to interfere with your plans (you had none anyways).

So you turned around, racing to where you heard the hilichurls from. You got to the top of a hill, looking down. There were hilichurls there, all right. Except they were all dead and a woman with light blue hair was standing in the middle. She held a bow, and you could spot a Cryo vision dangling from her hip.

You made your way down the hill. The hilichurls were beginning to disintegrate now, floating away into ashes.

As you came closer, you realized to woman had horns. Perhaps she wasn’t a civilian. You crept forward cautiously.

“Hmm? Oh!” The horned woman noticed you.

She was very pretty, you thought. Curvy, too. Suddenly, you had an idea. Admittely, a very bad idea, but like implied earlier, you were very bored.

“Hi!” You said, adopting a cheerful persona. “What’s your name?”

“Oh!” The woman said again, feeling flustered. Her cheeks turned a light pink. Cute. “My name is Ganyu.”

“Well Gan-yu.” You roll her name over your tongue. “What happened here?”

“I was sleeping…” She said softly. “And then a bunch of hilichurls attacked me! But I killed them all before they got to me.” Ganyu smiled, looking proud of herself.

“Oh, are you a Vision user?” You ask, appearing interested.

“Yes, I have a Cryo one!” Ganyu brushed it with her hand, looking down. Her head snapped up suddenly. “Do you have one?”

You giggle, hiding your mouth behind a hand. “No, I don’t. It does sound interesting though, doesn’t it?”

Ganyu nodded, bringing her hands to her horns. “Oh… I think I’m late to something.” She looks at you. “Sorry, can we talk again later? It was nice to meet you.”

“Of course. This time again tomorrow?”

She nodded, turning around and disappearing over the hill.

The next time you met up, you brought a few toys with you. Random objects you could buy separately without anyone suspecting a thing, but you had plans for all of them.

You laid out a picnic blanket, light pink with off-white dots. Then you set down your basket, waiting for Ganyu to arrive.

She appeared right on time, exclaiming softly when she saw your little display. “Oh! How wonderful!”

Ganyu sat down, tucking her legs under her thighs. She’s not wearing the same outfit as yesterday; instead she donned a soft blue dress that went down to her knees. She patted the space around her, looking eager for what would happen next.

“I brought some snacks for us!” You said brightly, bringing out a box of пирожки. They looked like normal pirozhki, if it weren’t for the little something you sprinkled in while making them.

Ganyu looked over them, fluttering her hands. “Which one should I choose?… They all look so delicious!”

“Here, take this one.” You pick one randomly and bring it to her lips. She paused for only a moment before opening her mouth and gently biting into the sweet pastry.

“Mm!” Ganyu moans, soft powder dusting her lips. “That’s so good!”

“Isn’t it? I made them myself.” A lie. You only… fixed them up.

“You’re really talented!” Ganyu says, clasping her hands together.

“Thank you.” You say, watching as a soft blush creeps up Ganyu’s cheeks. Good, it was working.

“Mmm…” Ganyu mutters. “It’s getting a little hot.”

She shifts in her seat, closing her eyes. Her mouth is open in a little ‘o’, and small puffs of breath comes out as her chest moves up and down.

“Are you alright?” You ask, faking concern. You lean over, bringing a hand over Ganyu’s forehead.

“I’m so sorry!” Ganyu says, flustered. “I feel weird all of a sudden… your hand is very cool…”

She leans into your palm, and you shuffle closer. Ganyu sighs, pressing into your figure. Her eyes are closed, and you take the initiative to trail your fingers down her thigh.

Slowly, carefully, you bring your hand to her crotch. Ganyu gasps, her eyes flying open. She tries to twist to look at you, but you grab hold of her shoulder and keep her in place.

“It’s ok… let me help you.” You purr next to her ear. You take the edge of the dress and flip it out of the way, revealing her wet panties.

Ganyu breaths heavily, watching your hand with attention. She sank into you as you touched her again, throwing her head back. “Look at you. How precious.”

You stroke her a few more times, enjoying how your fingers get wetter. Ganyu let’s out breathy moans, and your free hand travels to put a finger in her mouth. She closed it immediately, tongue swirling.

You slip your hand under the band of her panties, feeling her wet folds. Slowly you insert your middle finger into her, watching as she arches her back and whines. “Ah!”

You take your hand out of her mouth, carefully settling her body onto the ground. With your finger still inside of her pussy, the moving around makes Ganyu press her thighs against your arm. You smile.

Taking out the finger, you ignore Ganyu’s whimpers and string her soaking panties up and over her legs, one by one. You run your hand up and down her thighs, throwing her right leg over your shoulder. “You’re flexible.” You say. “Good.”

Lowering your head to be level with her pussy, you flick your tongue out to taste it. The juices start flowing harder as Ganyu cries out in pleasure. You press a chaste kiss to her inner thigh before slipping your tongue back into her folds.

Ganyu trembles as your tongue goes faster and faster, letting out noises that would embarrass anyone who came near them.

It wasn’t long until she climaxed. Her back arched incredibly, and her mouth fell open. She stayed that way for a few seconds before collapsing.

[1lostsoul0fishbowl]

August 21 is Fanfic Writer Appreciation Day 💕

…so I tried to make a list of 21 of my absolute favorite fanfics, but I couldn’t quite narrow it down enough. Instead you get 25!

(will tag the author if I know/can find their Tumblr— if I miss any please let me know)

🎉🩷🎉🩷🎉🩷🎉

Warm by @patternscolorsflowers - I made an Ao3 account for the sole purpose of bookmarking this as my very first favorite fic. A gorgeous one-shot of Joyce giving Eddie some much needed motherly TLC. I must’ve read this fic at least a dozen times, and cried every single time.

Disliking You Less by @claracivry - Claudia Henderson slowly learns to accept Dustin’s weird new metalhead friend. Just the sweetest, cutest fic!

Red and the Metalhead by @cunninghamschrissy - of course! The adorable fic that inspired me to write Not-so-iron Maiden! Max and Eddie as sibs have my heart forever.

Best we can do is to pick up the pieces by @hearjessroarfics - very, very sweet fic from Wayne’s POV as he observes Eddie and Chrissy in an unguarded moment.

Come True in the End by Many_Impossible_Things - absolutely BAMF Chrissy is tired of being underestimated, and comes back to life with a vengeance through the power of Pat Benatar. Seriously, read this one!!!

Take a chance on me by @womanof-1000-faces - Chrissy joins Hellfire. And it’s just as awesome as it sounds.

We’re not alone (I’ll find a new place to be from) by @grasslandgirl - Eddie learns to love Dustin’s hugs. Soooo cute.

Of All The Waffle Houses In The World by Babeinthewoods - a few unconventional wingmen (aka, the Party) help Eddie get a date with Chrissy, with lots of hilarious shenanigans along the way.

Eddie My Love by @ghostlynimbus - sweet little Hellcheer scene, and you’ll end up with the song stuck in your head for days.

Graceland, too. (Whatever she wants) by cunninghams - Eddie and Chrissy survive Vecna and then make a bucket list to take advantage of their new lease on life.

Five Drunks and a Cheerleader by @phoenixwrites - Chrissy goes to see Corroded Coffin at the Hideout. It sounds simple but it’s so.dang.cute and there’s a whole delightful series now!

That’s all I’ve got to say by @barriss - Eddie gets a little too emotional during movie night. Absolutely adorable.

The shop around the corner by @adelaideelaine - Hellcheer meets You’ve Got Mail with a little dash of tattoo parlor AU thrown in. One of my favorite ships plus one of my favorite movies? Heck yeah!

Have no fear (the monster’s gone) by JuliaRose12 - Heartmelting Wayne and Eddie fluff, as everyone’s favorite uncle looks after his beloved nephew in the hospital.

In Her Mercy Does All Abound by viharker - medieval troubadour AU. Nuff said, right? This one is so beautiful.

the buzz by @hangon-silvergirl - modern day Eddie as a chaotic DJ wooing Chrissy the Barista via music and text. Absolutely hilarious!

Come What May by @lokinightfury - Hellcheer starring in Grease? The entire Party and Corroded Coffin as wingmen? Yes please!!!

Wasted Years by @bratanimus - Eddie and the guys listen to a new album, as Eddie comes to terms with the past and prepares for his future. So introspective and beautiful, I cried so much reading this one. Really the entire Man to Man series is amazing!

The Kingdoms Never Weep by @sokkas-first-fangirl - Eddie’s estranged family tries to come back to haunt him, but the Party has his back. I love the gorgeous friendships in this fic and the whole series!

Guidance Counseling by @khaleesa - Eddie is determined to graduate, and slowly gets his life on track after surviving the Upside Down. I wanted to climb into this fic and live in it forever.

On the Other Side by @iwasateenagevirginiawoolf - One year after Vecna’s attack, Eddie and Chrissy are both learning to live again. Absolutely heartbreaking but so beautiful and optimistic at the same time.

Long is the Road out of Hell by @justhere4thevibez - Chrissy joins Hellfire, but this glorious fic comes with the added bonus of her escaping her mother, and the best Mike Wheeler I’ve ever read.

Family Recipe by @foxylibrarian - the cutest fake dating AU, Chrissy has Nancy, Robin, and Barb as her BFFs, and there’s lots of Wayne too. It’s everything you could want!

On My Terms by @pipergirl17 - Jason injuring Wayne in an accident doesn’t sound like the basis of a Hellcheer hospital meet-cute, but trust me, it works.

In the Shade of Aurelias by @pearlypairings - last but MOST CERTAINLY not least, is my favorite fic by my favorite author! A magical fantasy AU, with hints of D&D, mystery, intrigue, and romance. It was hard to choose just one from Pearly, because all of her works are amazing, but this fic is truly outstanding.

Happy Fanfic Writer Appreciation Day to all of my favorite writers, and happy reading to everyone who enjoys these fics!!! 💕