#you are a trash human doing this to get potty

[capn-hayashireceipts]

Lmao and it's funny you call me ableist when you are literally comparing my own disabilities and saying that it's not good enough because I work. Did you forget disabilities VARY. You absolute dumb fuck. So anything you say about me is moot point. You comparing your autism to anything I've been thru/suffer with is automatically a moot point because no one's disabilities are the same/severe enough.

Also my mental health is absolutely no one's business anyways and who says I haven't gotten help? Fucking idiot.

[lynaferns]

BIOMáquina: Sense of Living

Chapter 1: Stranger danger.

Ver. [ENGLISH / ESPAÑOL]

EDIT: This fic is now on AO3

The first meeting! In a world where humanity has confined themselves in encapsulated cities to let the outside world heal, our protagonist, Fern, breaks into the forgotten abandoment facility of Fazbear CO. in search for old materials and scrap to sell. But something's very off with this place, like the constant rotting smell that's in the air... (No, it's not Afton, there's no Afton in this AU, this is very DCA centered).

I have to mention, I never had the intention of writing this. But after I finished reading I see you, Sundrop! by @shirajellyfish (Thank you again @/cipher-the-sidhe for recommending it to me! I'm too shy to tag I want to cry EDIT: it's tagged now) I got motivated to write the first chapter of my AU and doing it my way. The early version of my BIOMáquina Sun may have some inspirations from ISYS's Sundrop, but I plan for him to develop by the end of the story into something more close to canon. Sassy, not the mean sassy tho.

I appreciate feedback about the english adaptation. I think I did fine but still, I'm not a native speaker, some parts may be weirdly worded. I'll be posting the Spanish version too, so you can judge my writing in two lenguages.

AU, DCA centered (but Moon doesn't get mentioned in this chapter) ...and mostly Sun centered too, Sun fnaf, OC, Selfinsert, Character & OC, platonic, friendship, slowburn (probably), OC is a potty mouth, Sun has amnesia, nonbinary/pangender Main Character, labs and abandonment facility, retrofuturistic world, steam/dieselpunk themed.

The first post where I showed this AU and Sun and Moon's designs. There's info about the world and characters, not necessary to enjoy the story but maybe you want an idea about this AU.

BIOMáquina AU Tumblr archive, with all the posts and asks.

Youtube Playlist wich has like half of Portal's ost. I have a especific order for the songs but you can put it on mix if you want.

Note: even though I try to keep things light some things may be triggering for some readers so I'm putting here the warnings just in case. Please tell me if it needs any additional tag.

TW: implied death, near death experiences, implied abuse (non sexual), panic/anxiety, paranoia, robot gore, violence.

Wordcount: 12,874

06:23 Thursday, Weather: clear.

It's been a long time since anyone has been here. The place has been reclaimed by nature over time, not completely consumed but enough to assume that it has been around a decade without any humans moving around.

Until today.

A small hovercraft vehicle is approaching in the distance. Today, instead of their usual destination, Fern decided to take another route and explore a little. She heads to the building she has seen in the distance. The abandoned facilities of Fazbear CO. She shouldn't be snooping around an abandoned building, much less one that seems to have been totally forgotten by the world, but Fern already had experience in breaking into dangerous and abandoned places, so it was okay (no, it was not).

She looks at the place for a while before parking their vehicle. A thought of 'Why not?' incites them to enter, and that's what she does. After struggling with the entrance locks she manages to open the doors. It looks like an automatic door but with a manual system for when the power is out, it's a pretty old design. The door stays open.

06:39

Fern enters inside, it's all dark, the only light being the one that comes through the door. She always carries their backpack loaded with all the basics she needs for when he goes out for materials (trash) or exploration (for more trash). She takes out a flashlight and inspects the place. She notices that next to them is an old robot disconnected and degraded by the passage of time, possibly unable to turn back on. It seems that this bot was in charge of guarding the entrance.

Advancing through the abandoned facility, Fern finds more disconnected bots. She's not with the right equipment to dismantle them and take their valuable parts, if there is anything salvageable from these robots. She makes mental notes and keeps going. The place is worse on the inside than the outside, somehow the dirt and weeds have managed to get in and grow in the most random places.

She finds a guide map of the place, it appears to be larger on the inside than it looks from the outside, much larger than one would expect. There are four upper floors and six lower ones, the upper floors makes a circumference leaving an empty space in the center, they are factory and assembly areas for bots/animatronics, tools, electronic devices... all equipment from the Fazbear brand, they have always made their own material. On the ground floor (L0) where Fern is, it seems to be the unloading area, cargo transport vehicles, offices and power generator on the upper floors. The first two lower floors appear to be more offices, boiler room, power generator room for the lower floors, laboratories, and... another animatronic assembly area.

...The last four floors are blurred out but you can read the words 'AI testing'. Did the test rooms have to be that far down? And why 4 entire floors of the building?

There is an annotation:

Authorized personnel only. Any unauthorized personnel who passes from the restricted area will be subject to a dismissal sanction.

Oho... now Fern wanted to go in there. Why would they hide that part? What do they have to hide? Knowing the company Fazbear Entertainment, a lot. It would be cool to be one of the few people to know what's down there, even if it remains as secret as before because Fern doesn't want to be reported or arrested, leaving the city without permission is already a reason for that. But before going to the deeper floors, better take a quick look at the upper ones first, their nature makes them want to keep an order to explore the place in the most efficient way (that she can think of).

As the map said, everything up there is material and assembly, some rooms even have narrow windows that let in some light through their gaps at the top of the wall... where you can't look outside, but at least they had some natural light in their work areas, those who worked up here at least... Fern looks around, it's a mess, there are papers and metals scattered on the floor... It seems that some of them left in a hurry, due to the misplaced chairs and tables... Fern makes a mental note to stop by again and take a better look at the old tools before heading home.

Hm? The central area hasn't been seen. Fern assumed that the part surrounded by the building would be visible from a window or that there would be an entrance to a flat area, but there appears to be none. Why would they waste so much space? Or maybe they weren't wasting it. Maybe there was something else there but it was inaccessible from the surface floors.

Fern didn't waste another moment to get down to the lower levels. The power generators seemed out of order, she wasn't going to be able to use the elevators. She wasn't planning on it either, They may possibly collapse over the time they have been sitting there without maintenance. What she planned was to save flashlight power if the generator could light the way. Oh well. Maybe the other generator on the lower floors is still functional.

...

It's not. Well, she had to try it. Fern would have felt stupid if the generator would had worked and by simply not checking she would have wasted the flashlight battery foolishly. Exploring the floor a bit more before continuing down she finds a small kitchen room. Oh? Was there a kitchen on the map? Fern doesn't remember, she should have taken a photo of the map now that she stops to think about it. There should be at least one map on each floor, she'll take a photo of the next one she sees.

Going down the stairs she finds the assembly rooms and laboratory that seems more advanced than the upper levels. These looks a little less messy than the previous floors. It's still noticeable that people left in a hurry, leaving the chairs and tables in any position and dropping objects along the way, but it seems that at least they cared about storing hazardous materials in the closets, all messy but at least not exposed... some doors aren't even closed properly- look, I'd better shut up and continue.

07:12

She finally reaches the end of the floor. There are no more stairs, just an elevator that takes to the restricted area (floors: L3, L4, L5 and L6), which means she needs the generator running... or... she can force their way through the elevator doors with a crowbar... opening the emergency hatch... and slipping through the gap between the elevator and the wall, which is conveniently one of those old-fashioned designs with bar steps on the wall (Nowadays these spaces are not left unless the elevator is very large and/or has been built with plenty of space). She goes down the wall stairs to the next floor which is also closed, so she has to force the elevator's security doors again. This time it's more complicated, she has to force the door without having a supporting floor since all there is is the circular wall, the beams that support the elevator structure and the void of the pit. Fern hangs from a beam near the door, digs the crowbar between the two doors with their feet, presses against the crowbar using their legs, and pushes their way through. After opening the doors enough, the crowbar slips from between their feet and falls into the pit. Fern watches as it falls, pressing their lips, and waits for the *clinggg* sound it makes when it reaches the bottom, '...hhhhhah, I'll have to go down for it later' she thinks.

After forcing the door a little more with their hands, just enough to pass through, she is finally inside, on level L3. Oh! And the first thing she sees is a complete map, good! She can take a photo with their phone so she won't get lost. From what it seems, this map reveals that there is indeed a central area of the facilities in use. For some reason to access the center of the building you have to go down to the deepest floors and from another elevator go up to the central area... weird. The design of the facility seems made to keep something as far away from the outside as possible, with all these turns and different elevators that they make you take to get to a place that would be so easy to access if only they had put one or two doors in the ground floor or upper. There was definitely something there, Fern had no doubt, maybe she was theorizing too much and it was just a strange design choice, but what a strange design choice, there is something there for sure and Fern was going there.

According to the map, the four lowest floors contain... a good bunch of animatronic storage cells, wow. Wait, now that she stops to take a closer look, that's a lot of cells. There are three or four larger rooms compared to the rest, 'daycare', it says. ...Fern didn't like the implications of that, she didn't like seeing the cells, daycares and laboratories so close to each other. If this is what's in the first restricted floors to the unauthorized, what could be deeper? For God's sake, what did they do with the children?

Fazbear Entertainment's animatronics were made specifically to deal with children despite their questionable AI performance. The daycares could have been to test how the animatronics behave with real children, okay, but why three entire daycares on the same floor? And there are at least two more on the floor above. It would be better understood if there were only assembly and repair rooms next to the cells, but laboratories... right in front of the daycares? Shady, very shady. Don't like it, don't like it a bit.

The lower floors are more littered with broken robots than the ones above. Somehow the place is more in ruins than the surface floors, which are more exposed to the outside. But the doors seem to have higher security with card readers, some broken, not all but they seem to be able to open. Going down the stairs to the L4th floor she began to see a different bot design half-assembled, this could be an animatronic design they were working on. On this floor she only sees half-assembled endoskeleton pieces and blueprints for said robot along with promotional posters of a daycare mascot... with a... Sun...? theme. Orange, yellow and red shades.

Fern approaches one of the blueprints, 'DaCaAtt/ProtoType_Model_N15', the N15 has been underlined several times in red and there are notes all over the blueprints. It's... a clown animatronic- rather a jester, with an astral theme? The head seems to represent a sun with the right half of its face being a crescent moon, as in those representations of the sun and the moon together, the moon looking sideways and the sun facing the front... only that, here it's like they have merged two faces into one, leaving the nose crooked to the side. All the unfinished endoskeletons seem to belong to this model. It is a somewhat extra complicated design, it has a lot of joints, especially in the face, seems like they wanted to go further with this design.

It seemed a little much to Fern for a children's animatronic daycare attendant. She understood that they were trying to make him look like the friendly mascot on the poster, but Fern could come up with a couple of ideas to simplify the design of the face: a screen with facial animations, for example. And why so much complexity in the robots interior? The more she looked at the blueprints, the more it seemed to them that she was looking at a disproportionate recreation of the human skeleton in metal. She continued advancing through the facilities until she found the next stairs to floor L5.

...At the bottom of the flight of stairs is a disconnected animatronic- rather broken, it's the sun. It seemed to be crawling up the stairs... its legs and the back of its head were busted, as if they had tried to stop it from going any further by hitting it with something. Peeking through the hallways, Fern finds more sun animatronics lying on the way or against the wall, damaged, some are whole, others missing chunks or entire limbs. She touches one of the robot bodies with their foot, it doesn't move, as expected. There is a gray cord and a piece of plastic sticking out from under the animatronic's hand, Fern uses their foot again to pull the cord out from under the hand. It's a torn, stained and mauled ID card, the string is broken as if it had been torn from something, neither the photo nor the name of the former owner can be identified. It's Fern's now. She should keep their eyes open in case of seeing more cards in better condition, if she can get the generators working she could open their way to more places. If they were to be useful.

Moving down the hallway she stops to look at the poses in which the animatronics were turned off; some of them have their faces intact enough to see an expression of terror them. None of them seemed to be going in a specific direction, just... running away. They were afraid. How advanced was their AI to simulate fear? Weren't they prototypes? No developed AI is put into robot prototypes, although well, that is a recent norm in robotics, who knows how old this place is.

Now that she realizes, there is a fairly dominant smell in the air since she came down the elevator. Fern thought it came from the labs and assembly rooms, because of the old metals and chemicals, but it has gotten stronger as she goes. Like something rotten mixed with rust and motor oil.

Fern is starting to think that she would like a friend to explore this place with. The deeper she goes, the more uneasy the place gets, and the more noticeable is the lack of fresh air.

She checks out the map, from the path she has taken it seems that she is approaching one of the daycares. Where the entrance should be there is a handful of sun animatronics in a pile blocking the door that's full of scratches and bumps. It seems that they tried to force it open, you can see the desperation in the wear and tear on their hands.

Hopelessness.

It's the word that best fits seeing this situation.

Fern feels a chill run down their spine and their stomach turns. She continues forward. More animatronic bodies disconnected or destroyed, there were almost no animatronics in the storage cells, they had all tried to escape. Upon reaching the floor L6, the number of robot bodies lying around seems to decrease. It seems that they were all already stored in their chambers, or they managed to get them in and disconect them before panic set in... or revealed themselves. No, this didn't look like robot rebellion. Maybe they found out something, a rumor that got out of hand? Maybe they found out that they were going to disconnect them forever and they panicked... Fern wouldn't blame them.

Peeking through the glass of one of the cells she could see a group of sun animatronics, all in their respective cabins on the wall, connected by a head cable. Some are standing leaning against one of the walls of their cabin, have a safety belt holding them in place, others are sitting on a seat in the cabin, and others are directly sitting on the floor. They are disconnected, turned off, obviously. The floor is padded with colorful sections and there are old pillows and stuffed animals on the floor. The rest of the chambers are the same, some with empty spaces. The number of animatronics lying on the floor in panic positions is less, rather they are sitting against the wall or simply lying on the floor in a more peaceful way. They either gave up or were somehow convinced to shut down.

07:38

Finally Fern reaches the elevator that takes you to the center of the facility. This elevator is more hidden than the rest and appears to be more advanced, Fern didn't seem to know if it was going to be as easy to open as the rest... ah- wait- their crowbar. She has forgotten to go look for their crowbar, which is at the bottom of the second elevator's pit... and to go look for it she would have to go back upstairs and down the stairs of the pit because she can't open the doors from the lowest floor as she had planned because she doesn't have their crowbar.

Fern.

You're stupid, man.

“Aaaaaggh...” she groans, looking up to the ceiling. She sighs. Before leaving the room she looks around to see if there is anything that could be used to force the doors and their eyes fall on the elevator again, it has a light. Wait, it has light? It can't be, the generators don't work. Unless there is a third generator for this elevator... She approaches the button panel, indeed, the lights above glow slightly, but how is it functioning? The entire place should be shut down. She decides to press the button just to try it out and a few seconds later the doors open, the light from inside illuminating the room along with Fern's flashlight.

Even though it seems to work, Fern didn't like the idea of using it. The elevator that took her to the lower floors was as dangerous as the others but at least she didn't had to use it to get down (Although it could have perfectly fallen as soon as you stepped foot inside, you idiot), but this one she was going to have to use it to open the doors to the next floor unless she finds something to use as a crowbar. However, this elevator did seem to be in better condition than the other. Maybe if she only made it go up one floor she could access the rest of the place from there.

Fern walks into the elevator. The floors available from bottom to top are: L6, LC2, LC1, C0, C1, C2, C3 and C4, there are no Lows 5, 4 and 3, C it'll be for “Center” just as L is for “Low”. She hesitates before pressing the button for LC2, a few seconds and the doors close, the elevator makes some screeching noises as machinery that hasn't moved for a long time starts working again until it suddenly begins to ascend. It moves non-stop, the noise it makes is worrying but it doesn't stop. As fast as the doors open, Fern crosses them and turns to the elevator, waiting for it to collapse and fall back to the bottom. It doesn't, the doors just close after a few seconds. If while she's at another part of the building she hears a crash noise in the distance, Fern will assume that the elevator has fallen and therefore will have to look for something that can be used as a crowbar.

For some reason there's no map of this part of the facility. There has always been one right out of the elevator or down the stairs, but this place doesn't have one. Weird, maybe all the employees in this area had their own? Or they knew it by heart. No, the first thing makes more sense.

Moving through the hallways, laboratory rooms, assembly rooms, etc, the floors seem to be the same as those already visited, but more advanced? The walls and doors are of higher quality and security, and the laboratory equipment, tools and others seem to be of the good-good ones... and expensive, but good, and quality. The central floors seem to be the only ones with electricity, partially, not all the lights are on and some of the ones that are are blinking. 'I hope none explode-' she thought to themselves. Immediately afterwards, a security door begins to open and close uncontrollably, giving Fern a start “AH-!” After the scare she takes a breath while the door begins to move slower and finally stops halfway open. The doors here must have a sensor or something, it must have been activated by proximity, is the card still functional? She takes it out of their pocket and passes it near the door trying to find the sensor. The door reacts but doesn't close or open completely.

Fern grabs one of the disconnected 'Staff' bots down the hallway and drags it to the door, blocking it in case it moves again and gets locked inside. It's an archive office, there are papers and file cabinets scattered on the floor. A ceiling panel fell on some filing cabinets and knocked everything to the floor. Fern glances vaguely over them, some papers seem to be records of laboratory materials and ingredients. Emphasizes, seems, because Fern doesn't understand the technical and convoluted language in which they are written, whoever worked here the guy's writing was embarrassing, they keep repeating the same elements all over the page in horrible handwriting. She doesn't see anything of value in the office so she leaves to continue moving through the maze of poorly iluminated hallways and malfunctioning doors.

08:10

Fern has been wandering around the facilities for quite a while now. Most of the doors are bolted shut and can't be opened (if a certain someone had gone back a few floors to get their crowbar...), next time Fern comes she'll bring suitable spare tools to open them. Although, is it worth going that far to get some pieces of metal? With what's on the first floors should be enough to renew tools and equipment, and make a good profit in the market. She wasn't into science so she didn't know what valuable objects she could take from the labs. She could look into it later, when she's done looking into what's here first.

The closer she gets to the center, the more the hallways light up, to the point that Fern no longer needs her flashlight and turns it off, for now. There are liquids running down the walls and dripping from cracks in the ceiling. Curiously, there are fewer marks of humidity than one would imagine; the leaks did not form long ago. The doors here seem to be in better condition than the ones before, possibly they are more complicated to open if this area has electricity and they are working better than the one before. She might have to see if she finds any more abandoned cards lying around.

This area is more open... and the wall appears to curve. There is a... castle door?? Like the ones you would see in cartoons or children's tales, with a crown of sunrays as the door frame. It's not made of wood, but it is some kind of hard material that Fern can't identify. There is a card reader panel next to the frame. A light comes out from between the doors crack.

...

Is this the center?

Fern grabs one of the door handles and pulls it. She hears a sound like rails moving inside as she opens the doors. What's on the other side has to be the strangest, largest room she's seen since she entered the building. Most of the floor is padded and colorful except for the entrance and a few more square meters of flooring which is tiled in a checkerboard pattern. Where there floor is tiled, there are security tables with computers, machines of some kind and office supplies. Where the floor is padded there are children's playground structures, jungle gyms, with tubes, slides, ball pits... Above the ball pit there's a fairy-tale like tower on the wall with a balcony, red curtains cover the entrance. No idea how to get there, there must be access from somewhere else. On the floor there're boxes of toys and stuffed animals... broken, but organized by size and color, it seems, some colorful cylindrical boxes are placed in a tower. Only what's on the play area seems tidy, everything beyond the padded floor is noticeably dirty, messy, basically a mess. The ceiling lights seem to come out of beams and are shaped like clouds, not all of them are on, some flicker. At the center of it all is a tower of cables that rises until it's lost above the lights in the darkness of the ceiling.

Fern enters the room, still observing the place. Although the gigantic column of cables and tubes in the center catches their attention, their interest falls on the computers next to them. The screens are on but they don't show anything, just a solid cyan blue color and some horizontal lines crossing the screen every now and then. The computers may be broken but there could be a possibility to repair them or take out the parts and put them to use... or even sell them as antiques.

...

Fern feels watched. She looks up from the machines to the play structures. A screech of moving rails. She sees nothing. She leaves the computers aside and approaches the play area. Another rail sound. Fern turns to look at where the sound came from. Behind the cable tower. Fern takes out a jackknife from their pocket and proceeds to circle the tower. Another screech. Accompanied by another noise coming from the ball pit. Fern approaches. There is a row of cables coming out of the tower and entering the pit. Uuuum, ok...?? weird... She steps on the bridge that comes out of the pit, without entering she leans to looks over it.

It could have just been a rat but Fern tried calling “Is anyone there?” knife in hand “Hello-?”

“HeEEEL-” A tall, disproportionate, slim figure suddenly emerges from the ball pit accompanied by the tinkling of bells, sending several balls flying, creating a rain around it, some balls falling out of the pit. It's arms extended in the air in salutation and a huge smile on it's face with crooked teeth. Some 'sunrays' in the shape of elongated orange triangles stuck out around it's head. “-LO!” A sun animatronic.

“AAAH-!” Fern screamed, backing up. The robot froze in the pose and the noises of a processor running could be heard, smile not leaving it's face, white eyes fixed on Fern, it only made a couple of movements that stopped abruptly halfway through as if it had paused and resumed its animation. It must not have registered their reaction, because it continued talking as if Fern hadn't screamed in shock.

“-N-new friend-? Oh-o-OH- Are you new-?! FRIE-NEW FRI-” *SCRRRR SCRRA SCRRRGGGH KKKKRRR* It froze again while something in his internal system made a noise that sounded like 'something's wrong' and it continued again as if nothing had happened “Who are you-?! I can't find your profile-! -Do you have a profile??? Have you come to play!? Have you come for the manteinence routin-? Are you a new technic-!? Can we play NOW!? We can-! You're not on the employee register-! You need a register-!”

Its arms were stretching out towards Fern trying to reach her. Fern backed away, trying to keep as much space as possible between them and the robot. It kept getting closer, without stopping smiling, without stopping penetrating them with its gaze, without blinking.

“-profile- you need a-! You cannot perform any procedures- or manipulate- any- *srsrsrrsrsrsrsrsrrckrkrkrkrkrkrkrkrkrk* fromtheFAzbear'sbrand- *krkrkrkrkrkrnnnnnnnnnnrr* Do I make you a profile!? You need a-” Its fan started to sound very loudly “How were you able to enter- without a profile-!??? Do you work here? How did you get in-!? What are you doing here-!?” Fern hit her back against the cable tower and raised their knife to put distance between the damaged robot and them “DETECTED: DANGEROUS OBJECT, IS THAT A WEAPON!? *VRRRRRRRRR*” A panicked expression replaced its smile, its fan getting louder and louder “YOU CAN'T BRING THAT HERE! YOU CA- YOU CAN'T- YOU- *krkrkrkrkrkr* THE RUL- *krkrkrNNNNNNNNNGGGH* AG-AGAINST TH- *NNNNNNNNNGNNGNGGNGN-* DAN-GRROS-” It stopped forming coherent sentences and began to blurt out half-cut words amid the noise of the processor overheating.

Despite the clear problems it was experiencing, its movements didn't stop, getting closer and closer. A robotic hand reached out to grab Fern's arm, planning to take the weapon from her. Fern waved their knife away from its hand and finally broke into a run.

“AH-! eeeh-eh-e...! WAIT” The sun shouted as Fern fled towards the doors “Why are you running!? Where are you going-!? NO- WAIT- waitwaitwaitwait!” It ran after them. Fern left the play area and rushed through the doors. “WAIT-come back- I'm so...” She crossed the hallways like a bullet, ignoring the screams that became progressively quieter. She didn't realize she had left it behind until she could no longer hear it and the hallways were dark again.

Fern finally stopped to catch their breath, looking back to make sure she had left it behind. Vocalizing between pants “What... th...e fuck...? ...what...the fuck? God... what the... shit was... that...?” She sat down against a wall to rest. She hadn't realized that she had been gripping the knife tightly in their hand and now it was a little sore, if it weren't for the gloves she would have seen their knuckles white.

08:48

It's been a while. After calming down and drinking some water, Fern decides to go back to see what is happening with the sun and why it's the only active animatronic (seen so far) in the whole place. Thinking about it, it surely didn't want to scare them, possibly. It has been abandoned here for a long time, it's normal for it to be damaged. If its processor is salvageable and its AI gets a fix or two she could use it for help. But if that were the case, what should she do? She can't leave a robot with autonomy abandoned, much less in these ruins, part of Fern would feel bad but she can't take it with them. Where would she put it? Where would she take it?

That seems like a problem for future Fern.

It will be best to keep the knife, and possibly any type of weapon away. There was a lot of movement and noise at that moment but Fern believes she remembers a slight change in the robot's behavior when it discovered the knife. More erratic, more anxious, it couldn't even formulate complete words. Maybe if she went calmly and manages to calm the robot down, she could talk to it and find out what happened here. And why it is active.

She's arriving at the castle-like doors again. They're open, just like Fern left them. The robot could have gotten out and be hanging around the building, but something was telling Fern that wasn't the case. Slowly, without making a sound, she approaches the doors and peeps from the entrance, their eyes scan the room but don'tt find the sun. Fern decides to go in, thinks about calling it but backs away when she hears the screak and the rails again. If that sound came from it then it was still here.

...

Fern decides to go into the room. She wanted to prove a theory and for that she needed it to appear, and something was telling them that if she stayed at the door it wasn't going to appear. She puts one foot on the padded floor. Nothing's heard. She goes further into the playing area, the loose cables that entered the ball pit are no longer there, possibly they are connected to the robot so the logical thing would be to look for where they've gone. Starting from the central tower, the cables seem to go behind the play structure, Fern approaches to follow the line of cables.

*creeek*

A squeak. Fern turns around. Another screech. It came from the tower. Looking around she notices that the cables comes out of the play structure and disappear behind the tower. Fern approaches, circling the tower slowly, cautiously, following the cables. A metallic hand grabs their shoulder. “You are... here...”

“AACK-!” Fern screamed as she jerked the hand off their shoulder and ran towards the doors.

“No, wait, not again!” Fern leaves the room and turns to look inside holding the doors, ready to close them. But it seems it won't be necessary.

The robot has not moved past the padded floor. It looks at the tiled floor in front of them with concern, its posture is hunched as if it doesn't know what to do from that point or something bad will happen if it steps on a tile. Its arms curled against its chest, it clutches the red ribbons hanging from its wrists. Its eyes alternating between looking at Fern and the ground until it finally decides to speak.

“a...a-...y- You are here!” It says with joy, extending its arms and putting on a smile again, forced... no, genuine? “You are here again! ...a- I-I- was- you- *skrrrrrrrrr kr kr kr* You're back! And you are here and you are back and I thought you wouldn't come back and-!” it gesticulates very widely “-and-and- I'm sorry- sorry I scared you- TWICE!” emphasizes by pulling out two fingers of its hand “I'm sorry... it's just that- I haven't seen anyone in a long time! Or talked to someone! Or touched! And I was SO EXCITED! B-because you were there! And I touched you! And you were there! And I-! *skr...skr...skr...skr...* And I thought you weren't coming back! ...I thought you weren't going to come back.” Its shoulders droop and its body loses all movement, it stares at the ground, muttering. “And then I thought I scared away my new friend and they weren't coming back. But then I heard footsteps! And I felt something! And it was you! And I'm so happy! *sKNNNGNGnnn...*” It stands still again, with a somewhat creepy smile and its gaze fixed on Fern.

Fern remained silent. She doesn't really know how to react after having heard all that. The only thing that was going through their mind was that this robot showed autonomy and clear signs of stress, anxiety and loneliness. She can't leave it here but she also doesn't know if they could be dangerous or if it's just very hyperactive. They are clearly disturbed. Now that Fern noticed, one hand was more skeletal than the other, the entire casing of its left arm was missing and the ribbon was tied poorly with its bell. Parts of its endoskeleton were exposed, their casing was damaged in many places, and their jester's clothes were not much better either. The red and yellow striped pants were torn, the left leg open by a gap that ran from the bottom to top, an adhesive tape near the groin prevented the gap from spreading further, it appeared that the pants were held in place by a belt that didn't belong to the costume. The cables coming from the central tower and scattered across the floor seemed to end at the back of his head.

The sun began to look nervously between Fern and the floor again “H-ey- a- cou... c-could you come closer?” Its posture shrinks again, hands against its chest.

“...What?”

“Could you come closer? P-p-please?”

“...” Fern glances at the floor, at the robot's feet, and then at them “...You can't step on the tiled floor, can you?” The sun lost its smile and looked down at the ground, after a few seconds they nodded its head.

It looked back at Fern “I...can't. I-it's off limits. I can't." The forced smile returned “B-but you can come closer, could you come closer? Please…?”

“No.” Fern truly wasn't planning on doing so.

“Ack-! *knnnnnnnnn skrskrskrskr* W-w-w-why?!?”

“I'm just fine here, I think I'm going to stay at the door.” She said as she let go of the handles and sat on the floor crossing their legs “Besides, I don't want you grabbing me again.”

“I didn't grab you! I didn't!” They made a gesture with its hand, replicating the motion they made when they touched Fern earlier “I only touched your shoulder! I placed my hand on your shoulder!” Did it really only placed its hand on their shoulder? It happened not long ago, Fern remembers feeling more pressure than necessary. She could still feel the metal fingers digging into their right shoulder.

“Yeah... I don't remember it that way.” Fern put their hand on their shoulder “You've been trying to get your hands on me ever since you saw me.” The sun was about to open its mouth to say something but they backed out *kknnnnnnnnnnn* it seemed to be thinking in what to respond, it looked tense. Fern was also thinking about what she could do to calm them down so she could get closer, but it seemed that at the slightest chance she'll have it near it was going to pounce on them (And for your information, Fern, your attitude isn't helping either).

“You shouldn't sit on the floor.” the sun said.

“Eh?”

“*skr skr* I-it's not good *skrrr* that you're sitting on the floor. You're go-o-oing to hurt yourself, why don't you *skrrrrrrrr* sit here in the play area? The floor is softer, that would be better...” Fern frowned at them “O-o-or-” The sun looked around, pointed to the desks where Fern was looking at the computers earlier “-you could use one of the office chairs, where the security desks!” It smiled, its smile seemed more sincere this time “You don't have authorization to be there! But...” It glanced nervously at the chairs, then at Fern “It won't hurt to use it for a bit! Until the security guards come... But I won't tell anyone! Word!” It held up its hand as a promise gesture “Just, don't touch anything... they get really angry when people touch something, and then they yell at me...”

“No, I'm fine, thank you.” That chair was worse than the floor, and Fern didn't want to move away from the door. A *skrrrrrrrrrnnnnnn knnn knnn krkrkrkr* was heard from the robot, she didn't like that. The sun started looking between Fern and the chair again, finally ended up staring at the floor. The way it let its 'rays' fall was reminiscent of the ears of a saddened animal “...” “Hey.”

“Huh?” It raised its 'rays' again expectantly.

“Why don't you sit down? ...so we are both sitting.” Fern said trying to make the situation less awkward. It occurred to them that if they were both at the same height it would ease the atmosphere a little.

“...I don't need to- *Knnnnnnn skrskr* ...-Okay! Yeah, yes, okay...” It slowly knelt on the floor. It looked at Fern and then returned its gaze to the floor. “...” “I'm sorry...” It apologized again “I'm sorry, I know I scared you and that you don't trust me and I'm sorry, I'm very sorry.” It clenched the fabric of the pants where the scuff marks met with its fingers, its shoulders shrinked “...Please don't go.”

“Nah, I'm too lazy to get up now.” She said in another attempt to convince him she was staying to reassure him.

“Please don't go…” It repeated. They sounded like they were about to cry.

“... I'm not going anywhere.” She tried again, leaning back and supporting their weight on their hands. “...Word.” Fern imitated the hand gesture the robot made earlier, as a promise.

*Knnnnnnnnnnn* The sun stared at Fern's hand, then at them. “Are... you're staying?”

“Yes, I'm staying.” Fern looked to the side, thinking. She looked back at the robot “...For a while. Until I have to leave.”

“*knnnnnnn* When will you leave?”

“Eh... possibly within a few hours. So... yeah, we can talk.” (For my mother's love Fern, my child, you sweet summer child, more cheer.)

*skr- skr- skr- knnnnnnn* The sun seemed to be processing the information. Fern looked at them expecting them to start talking at any moment.

...There was silence for a minute. Fern decided to speak.

“So what's your name?”

“What's your name?” They said practically at the same time.

“Ah-”

“Oh- *skr skr skr*.”

Fern gestured for them to start first.

“I- a- *knnnnnn knnnnn knnnnn knnnnn* n-no, you can go first!” The robot said, with a constant *knnnnn* sound.

“Um, okay. My name's Fern, you?”

A *kr kr* interrupted the previous sound and only *knnnnnnn* could be heard again. It was silent for a bit. Then it decided to speak “Fern! Oh, that's a very nice name! It fits you, yes... *sk sk knnnnnn* Hey, hey, Fern...! What do you like to do-? What do you like to play? Your favorite color-?!”

“Hold on, hold on! Are you going to tell me your name or am I going to be left without knowing?”

“Um... *skr skr skr* one... *knnnnnnnn* one moment-” Again that *knnnnn*, another minute in silence “...” “Oh! Hey, hey! Do you like puppet shows? I'm very good at making them! Or I can teach you how to make puppets if you want-!”

“What I would like is knowing what to call you. Don't... you know it's rude to ask someone's name and then not introduce yourself?” She said trying to pressure them into saying its name.

“Oh! *skr skr* My name! *skr* Yes, my name!”

“...”

“...”

“...”

“*skr... skr... skr... skr... skr...*”

“E-”

“Do you like painting?! I can get some paints and papers and we can paint together-!

“Your name! How can I call you?”

“Oh-! ah... You can call me whatever you want!” They said as it adjusted its posture, sitting crossing its legs like Fern “You can use a nickname, or nicknames! If you like, I love nicknames! Do you like nicknames? Do you want a nickname? Do I give you a nickname-?! Okay!” They put its hand on its chin, thinking “Let's see...”

“You don't know your name, do you?”

“ng... *sknnnnnnnnnn*” Its head twitched and it froze in the posture looking to the side. Some fans began to make sound “nn... i...k...kno...i... I-I-I- I know! It's- It's here! Here! In my sys-! *skgghghrghrghrrrr* -TEeem... eh... ah...” It looked confused, its eyes move as if it was reading something in the air “I...” Its shoulders slump in disappointment, whatever it was searching for in its system they couldn't seem to find it “I can't...” murmurs.

“...Can you tell me your code? The name of your model I mean.”

*skgkg-* “...” “I cannot give that type of information to unauthorized personnel or not employed by Fazbear Entertainent.” It said in a monotone voice. “...” “It makes no sense as a name anyways,” it laughed “it's boring and hard to pronounce.”

“Don't you have a name they used to call you by here?”

“Um...” It's fans started up again.

“...” Fern remembers seeing something written on the posters she saw earlier, something about sun...drop? She looked around. Those same posters were here too, on the walls and desks along with others that seemed more outdated. 'Sunnydrop', said the posters, although it seems more like the name of the candy they promote. “Eh.”

“Hm?”

“What if I called you 'Sun'? For short, for the moment. Like a short version of the poster over there.” Fern said, pointing with their head and thumb. “And 'cause, well... it's literally the shape of your head... it's not very original but...” (I'm not pronouncing that whole name every time I want to refer to you.) “I don't know, how about it?”

It looks between Fern and the poster until it smiles and nods its head vividly “Okay, yeah! Call me Sun!” It looks happy with the idea. The fans and noise of its processor have reduced. Fern already has a name for the sun animatronic, Sun, ironically. “I like it! Oh, I like the nickname you gave me!” Its 'rays' make a spin around its head followed by some *clicks* and *tics*, was that to express happiness?

“Hey.”

“Yes, friend!? Uh-Oh! Is it okay if I call you friend?” It seemed nervous again. Fern was going to have to be extremely careful talking to Sun if at the slightest it'll get upset over something like calling them 'friend' instead of using their name.

“Yeah, sure, call me whatever you want. Hey, how long have you been here?” Possibly not the best question to start with but Fern had many questions about this place and especially about Sun.

“For-! Uh... *knnnnnnnn skr skr skr skr* since... *kr kr kr kr kr kr kr kr kr* uhhh...*skr skr skr srk*”

“Okay, stop stop.” After a few moments Sun stopped as instructed, along with the processor's noise, and looked at Fern with curiosity and a feeling of having done something wrong. “Let's see. How long... have you been On? Since the last time you started up again.”

“Oh! I can anwser that! *knnn krkr kr skr...* Four...thousand *skr skr kr-* two...hun...dred ninety...-EIGHT! Days. Since my last reboot... Ah- no- well... since my last hard reboot. I don't really need to shutdown but sometimes I need restarts... Be a few minutes (or hours) 'off '. Oh, but since then I've been fine! Working perf-*skgrah*-ectly! *skr*.” It swung its fist to the side with energy and a smile, ignoring the distress call from its system.

“...Yeah. And those noises that are constantly coming out of you? They don't sound very good, to say the least.” She's right.

“I've already fix-! *skgrr-* I've already fixed it! S-sometimes it happens and I don't realize it, but I always fix it!” “...” “I-I know you were a little scared before! And-and that- And that I acted weird! I...I know! I'm sorry... But that's it! I'm functioning perfectly!” It swung its fist again, this time with less enthusiasm “...Seriously...”

Fern looked at Sun thoughtfully “Back... in the ball pit. The noises were much worse and constant, and you froze with every movement or at mid-word. Does it happen to you often? I am no expert!” Fern held up their hands in excuse “But I wouldn't call that 'functioning perfectly'.”

“I-I- said I already fixed it! *skrgggrggrgr- kr kr*” There it was again.

“It's getting worrying, you know?” If it wasn't already before.

Sun waved its hand in denial “Nothin'nothin'nothin'-! *skrrr* It's nothing, it's nothing! *kr kr*” It repeated over and over between loud processor noises, the more it panicked, the longer the noises became “that that that! Dasit-! That's it! *skr krr-* There! *skrrrrr- kr- kr- kr-* Now, it's-! *sknnnnnnnnn skrGRRRrrAH* IT'S ENOUGH!” Its fans were starting up again along with the noise at an alarming rate. Sun started to make a sound that resembled hyperventilating. By panicking, it was asking too much of the internal system and it became destabilized (Hey Fern, the part about being careful with what you say, no, huh?).

“Okay! Okay, calm down. It's okay.” Fern sat forward raising their hands, still kneeling on the floor. Sun looked at them as it tangled its hands together. “It's okay...” She tried to think quickly what to say “You said that you had been... like four thousand or so days On.”

“*Skr skr* ...Four thousand two hundred and ninety-eight...*skgr*” It frowned at that last noise.

“Four thousand two hundred and ninety-eight days, okay. And in all that time, have you seen anyone else besides me? Have you received maintenance or any messages from them?”

Its expression shifted to a bewildered look at Fern. It started playing with the ribbons on its wrists “No... No, but-” It tried to show a smile again “-but it's okay, I've been taking care of myself a lot-lot-lot-! And I have been very careful! And I've paid attention to the alerts! And then they won't have much work ahead of them...! For... when they come back...” “...” “They're taking their time. They're...-they're taking a long time to come back.” It started rocking on the spot, back and forth “But it's fine! Because when they come back-*skrgrgrhs* when they come back- I'll-! *skrgr* I've been behaving well! I've been behaving very well.” It suddenly lowered its tone of voice. It looked at the floor while its hands still played with the ribbons, tangling them between its fingers. “I have been good. They won't have to worry and will be able to return to their work. I have been very good. I am functioning perfectly. There is no problem. I'm fine. I already fixed it *skrnnnnnnnnn*” Again the noise “I've fixed it, I've fixed it, I've fixed it!”

“Okay! Okay. Alright, I believe you.”

Sun looked up and tensed its shoulders... and its 'rays'. It looked surprised, like it had forgotten Fern was there. “*Skr skr skr skr skr skr skr skr* Oh-! Oh.” It looked at the ribbon tangled between its fingers for a moment, untangled it, and looked back at Fern as its hands continued to play “I- didn- ...I'm sorry.”

“I was- I was just wondering, how... come that-” 'How are you still functioning after all this time?' was what Fern wanted to ask among a thousand things. But seeing Sun's expression, that mix between stress, fear and somehow enthusiasm, just to be there, with someone. Fern decided to put their questions aside “You know what? Why don't you ask me something?”

“*skr skr* Oh! I've already asked you a lot of things earlier! You still haven't answered those~!” It said with a more cheerful tone.

“Sorry, I don't remember them, can you repeat them for me?” Better to start gaining its trust.

Sun's posture tensed as it leaned forward, it clenched its fists with enthusiasm and its 'rays' shrank and extended, making a wave effect around its head, it made an inspiration sound “*GAAAASP* What is your favorite thing to do-?!What do you like to play-? What places do you like going to-?What's your favorite color-?!Your favorite song-?Your favorite food-?Do you like puppet shows-?Would you like me to teach you how to make puppets-?!Do you like nicknames?Would you like me to give you one-?Do you like painting-?Can we do make-?”

“One at a time! I can't keep up with everything.” Fern cut them off before it continued its endless list of questions. Sun had that guilty look again with its 'rays' drooping. Before it could began to apologize Fern continued “What's the first thing you want to ask me?”

“Um- eh-ah- *knnnnnn* What's your favorite thing to do in the world?!”

“Humm...” Fern took a moment to think. She could give a random answer to move forward the conversation faster but she wanted to be honest. And she was having a hard time because she couldn't remember what she liked to do most. “I guess... uuuuuhh... drawing? Although- well I don't really draw much.”

“*kr kr* I like to draw too! And painting! And crafts! What's your favorite game?!” Sun jumped to the next question.

“Uf, uh...” Fern wasn't great at remembering their own interests. It's hard when you don't think about it often, or ever “I don't think I have a favorite game... Mmmm-I like it when the game uses cards... but I don't know.”

“*skr kr kr* Oh! I also like card games. What's your favorite color?!”

“Oran...ge...? No... Well, yes, but maybe pastel yellow... although I also like some shades of green and purples.”

“*skr skr kr*” Sun seemed to be taking note of everything Fern was saying before asking the next question. “You can choose more than one! I like sky blue!” How ironic “What's your favorite food?” If it wasn't for the enthusiasm it gave off when asking and waiting for the answer, Fern would have thought Sun was getting back at them for asking it difficult questions earlier. It could be, but hard to believe with the little bounces it gave in place while smiling with excitement.

“I mean... I don't know- I like salty foods, and some acid ones but... I wouldn't know what to tell you my favourite food is.”

“*skr* Oh, well... I like cupcakes!”

“...How can you have a favorite food?”

“Why wouldn't I have???”

“Can you eat? Are you made with the capacity for it?”

“*kr knn* Ohoho! No, I can't eat them, but I like how they look! I think they are pretty! There are many ways to decorate them...! *skr kr kr* Oh! I also like homemade cookies! You can give them any shape you want and decorate them and you can also make them colorful!” What Sun seemed to like was the process of making them, makes sense.

“Ha.” Fern showed a smile of understanding.

“... *skr krkrkr skr kr*” It took a moment to ask the next question. “Do you like music? Do you have a favorite song?” It seemed more relaxed talking.

“I like it but um... I couldn't tell you... I've never chosen one as 'the favorite' ...you know?”

“*SKRRR* Y-you don't have to choose! Y-you are not obliged *skr kr*” Sun must have noticed Fern upset, but it wasn't because of them. What bothered Fern was not being able to give a confident answer. “Everyone has a hard time choosing sometimes-! *kr* There are a lot- lot of songs and music! How to choose just one... ahaha...” It laughed.

It continued the relentless bombardment of questions. Sun asked the typical basic children's questions when they have just learned how to make friends and chatted about various game topics. Fern tried to slip some 'discreet' question about the Fazbear company and Sun, but it would get nervous when it was unable to respond and would hung up, so they would change the topic again and talk about personal interests.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

It's been a long bit.

“*knnnnnnnnn*... Do you… do you have a favorite place?” Sun asked, showing a bit of shyness.

“...” It took Fern a while to answer “I- guess... My house? I don't know..."

“... D-don't you have... a comfy place? A place where you feel more comfortable than others?”

“Heh, yeah, my bed…” Their answers became more and more vague.

“Oh-! *skr* hehe... Does that mean you're not an early riser?”

“Actually, I usually get up early, but who isn't comfortable in their bed, you know? Besides, I get up early out of obligation. It's not that I can just stay in bed and do nothing.”

“*krkr* Oh...haha, of course...” There were a few seconds of awkward silence until it asked “Uh... a-a-are you bored? A-a-are -y-y-ou getting bored?” Its fans began to be heard.

Fern cut them off before it could start rambling in panic again. “No no! It's not that... it's just that-” She wanted to explain themselves but couldn't find the words. “I don't know. I guess- I'm a little tired, and lost in thoughts. I wasn't expecting...this” She pointed their hand in Sun's general direction.

“...Ah?” Sun tilted its head to the side in confusion.

“I mean... it's just...” I came to steal old material and scraps “I came in here expecting to explore a little and leave and now I'm... sitting here. I didn't expect to be answering questions about me or my personal tastes in craft materials.” She looked at Sun “...Or to have a conversation with a robot” Sun frowned a little at that last bit. “Not to belittle! I didn't expect to find anyone when I came here.”

“No no-! It's not that- ah- Why weren't you expecting anyone??” Sun asked with genuine confusion “There are always a lot of people working here, especially during the day!”

“...” Oh, boy. That “uh... Sun” It's better for them to know it now as soon as possible ...right? “I think... no one comes here anymore.”

“...?” Sun looked at Fern with bewilderment but maintained a light smile.

“...”

“...”

“...a-”

“AHAHA-” Sun suddenly laughed. Its posture and smile had frozen, its gaze fixed somewhere behind Fern.

She knew it wasn't looking at them, she swayed sideways and made various arm gestures and poses to check it. The *knnnnnnnn* that began to sound confirmed to Fern that it was still working and had not suddenly broken, maybe it just gave an error and was processing a response. “...Sun?”

“HA-” *SKRGKRrrgkk...* It looked like it had a spasm for a moment. Its head tilted and a mechanical *click* was heard, shortly after its face made a full rotation followed by more *clicks*. Its smile widened again, maintaining its worried expression, it put its hands on its ankles and began to sway back and forth rhythmically. “Silly-silly-silly-silly-silly-! *sKRKRrrg* OOOOH so silly-! That's so silly-! AHA-ahA ha-! Don't say nonsense!” It said smilingly.

Fern could only look at Sun in bewilderment and pity.

*skr* It stopped its swaying and relaxed its tone “Don't be silly, friend. Of course people still come! They have to come and do their job! Their work is very important! They wouldn't all quit so suddenly!”

“...Has anyone been here in the last years?” Fern asked, worried for the answer.

*skrKR* “You have come!” It responded instantly happily “You are here! -Right now!"

“...Sun,” uff “Have more people come here besides me in the last years?”

“...” *skrkr skr kr kr kr...* Its smile was falling but it didn't disappear completely. “Surely.... they are working in another part of the building. -Y-yes *kr*, they must be very busy! Working! Elsewhere...!” A low *kr kr kr kr* began to be heard “That's why... it must be that... You aren't a new technician! Right!?”

“¿¡!?” That took Fern by surprise. “Um- nope.”

“A-a-a-and- you haven't seen anyone since you came in here! Right!?” *skrskrskr*

“...No-?”

“Of course!” *SKR* The half-joyful-half-nervous tone returned “-Of course you couldn't have seen anyone! You don't work here! You can't have the work schedule or know where they might be-! You can't know- aHAha-!” If Sun noticed the worried looks Fern was sending him, it must have ignored it.

“Y-yeah okay, but- alright... and... haven't you thought... that they haven't stopped by to visit you in a long time?” Fern gave a small worried smile. “-Haven't you seen them in a while time?”

“LIIIke I said before- they're busy- they don't need to come see me now! *krkrkr* It must be that I don't need to be examined at the moment! That must be it haha! You're not from here so naturally you don't know! You don't know what they're working on! Don't worry- don't worry-!”

Fern could only think that this was going to be more complicated than it already seemed at first. The robot continued with its paranoia that this place was still running. Something light up on its face, as if it had remembered something.

“B-besides- they said they would come back tomorrow! So it's fine! They'll be back!”

That got all of Fern's attention. “Wait- holditholditholditholdit-! They told you they would be back, tomorrow???”

Sun nodded its head vividly “Mhm! That's what they said!” It looked more cheerful.

“But- like, tomorrow-tomorrow?”

*Sknnnnnnnnnnnn* Ah, one of the various sounds of thinking “They said they would be back tomorrow!” It drops that and stays chill, with a smile on its face.

“So you're telling me... they talked to you today?”

“Oh, no! I haven't seen them today...”

“They sent you a message then.”

“No no, I haven't received any messages in a while.” *skr*

“...” For the love of my life “They... told you the date they would return, and that date is tomorrow?”

"No, silly!" it said with laughter “I'm telling you, they told me they would be back tomorrow!”

Fern was perplexed. She was finally managing to get even a sliver of information out and she had gotten themselves into a loop with the robot. But wait- “Sun, how long ago did they tell you they would be back tomorrow?”

Sun stayed silent, the only audible sound the long, drawn-out *knnnnnnnnnn* it seemed to do when it thought. It dug its fingers into the fabric of its pants near its ankles and didn't move again. A while passed and it was still motionless, thinking. It began to repeat a sequence of noises as if it had gotten stuck in its thoughts and suddenly the sound stopped. Its smile fell, its body lost all the tension that kept them upright, and it slumped to the side.

Fern startled. “¿Sun?” Didn't seem to respond “Oh, God...” Just as she thought of getting closer to check if it was okay, Sun sat up, making a lot of mechanical *clicks* and *tics* as its limbs settled back into their natural positions. It could be hear the fan running and soon the *skr skr* it had been doing the whole time they were talking.

It finally looked up at Fern. It seemed to function normally again, “...” “...” “...HEEEEL-” or almost “-LOOO... *SKGrkrgr* N-new friend-? Oh-o-OH- Are you new-?! ARE YOU FRIEND!? *kgr*” This sounds familiar... Sun got up from excitement, it couldn't stop bouncing on the spot. “Who are you-?! What's your name!? *skgr* I can't find your profile-! -Do you have a profile??? OH! Are you the new playmate!? Wait, are you here for the routine maintenance? *kr- kr-* Are you a new technician-!?” And we start again “Can we play? Can we play NOW!? Can we-! You're not on the employee registry-! You need a registry to-! *skgrkrkrkr* How could you get in without a profile!??? Do you work here-?” It stopped dead and stared at Fern. Its white pupils scanned them from top to bottom. “*skrgrkrg* *GASP* You don't work here! How did you get in-!? What are you doing here-!? INTRUDER! STRANGER! ¡AAA-!” His rays tensed, Sun began to run in circles screaming “SECURITY ALERT! SECURITY ALERT! WOO WOO WOO WOO!” And imitating alarm sounds. Its screams mixed with the noises of its processor and fans. Fern could only look in amazement and disconsolation at the panorama.

“Sun.” She tried calling them but it kept going 'woo woo' while running and doing pirouettes across the floor. “Sun! Hey!” No case. Eventually it went back to just spinning around in circles while shouting 'DANGER DANGER' over and over again. “Sun! Listen! SUN!” It stopped but not because of Fern. It had frozen in its animation again, its head and hands rotating in place, sparking from the friction. Now it was just repeating 'ERROR ERROR' non-stop with a monotone voice.

Fern panicked, she spun around on themselves looking around, searching for something. She located an old, dusty ball behind a chair and threw it hard at Sun, hitting them in the face. Somehow this made it stop completely. Fern watched silently waiting for something to happen but Sun remained motionless without making a sound. A few seconds later the fan sounded again along with the rest of the usual noises, it took them a while to start up. When it finally did, it returned its gaze to Fern, scanning them up and down.

“...” “*GASP* New frie-!”

“AH- NAH-no-no-no-no-nah-! We are not going through this again!” Fern cut them off before it could start with everything all over again.

“...f-...frie-nd-...” That left them in shock. It lowered its rays and its posture shrank. The *vrrrrrr* of the fans could be hear.

“Y-Yes- yes... friends! We're friends” Saying that seemed to help improve its mood. Sun went to open its mouth to speak but Fern was the one who did it first. “Before you say anything-! Um... No, I don't work here and I don't have a profile. Yes, I've snuck in, uh- don't activate the alarms yet, I don't have any bad intentions...” That last one was partially a lie. Don't get upset, okay? ...We don't want you to suddenly shut down and collapse again.” Sun tensed up upon hearing that but did as instructed and remained calm for the moment. “We've been talking for the last- THREE HOURS.” Fern looked at their watch, it had been over three hours and she was having a hard time assimilating it but she looked back at Sun who was expectant of Fern's words. She took a breath and continued. “Okay, look, we've been talking for a long time and you've already asked me everything about me. Y-you should have that information recorded somewhere in your memory! It happened just now.” She paused to see if Sun had caught everything she said and gave it a moment to search for said information. It could be hear the *skr skr* of thinking and the fans. After a while it stopped making noise, but the nervous fidgeting of its hands let Fern know it hadn't collapsed again. “Do you remember anything of what happened in the last few hours?” She asked.

Sun seemed to have come out of the trance it was in and started looking between its hands, the computer desks, and Fern. “*skr- skr-*...uuh...uh...” The fidgeting passed from its hands to the ribbons “...yyyyyess?? uh- *SKRG* I- *kr* I shouldn't give- *sKRGRRGKRgrrss*” Oh no... It froze again- “Yes! Yes, of course! Ha- How would I forget-?” It had that expression again between happy and on the verge of an attack “I haven't forget anything! I haven't forget anything-! Don't worry! It's all here-!” It raised its arm doing a swing with one finger pointing at its head. “It's here! I forgot nothing- nothing! It only took a lil' bit to load- haha...” Sun smiled awkwardly while Fern looked at them with concern and seriousness. “Yup, a-aALLLl in order! *-skrgr*” It confirmed one last time.

Fern let out a tired sigh. She looked worriedly at the watch on their wrist. 12:11 “Okay... okay look, I- have been here for a long time now, I should go-”

“What-!? No no! *-kgrkgrgr* Please no!” Aaaand Sun panicked again. “Don't go! HahA-! I- Um- Can-! *SKGR* I-I-can-can-can- a-any- thing! I can do anything-! Whatever you want-!” Its voice was cutting off with static and it let out gasps between pleas, its rays were trembling. Fern tried to say something but it was only a murmur between Sun's desperate screams. “Don't leave yet, please! It's still too soon! Don't leave me alone! I don't want to be alone-!”

“I'LL COME BACK!” Fern finally raised their voice.

“...eh?”

"Listen." Fern made sure she had Sun's attention “I cannot stay any longer, I just can't! I've already spent longer than I intended here and I have a lot to do. So...” She sighed and looked at Sun, they maintained eye contact. “...I'm leaving for today, and I'll be back tomorrow, okay?” She saw confusion on Sun's face, from the sound of *Knng* and the way it tilted its head it didn't seem to have understood. She repeated again gesturing with their hands as she spoke making their points clear. “Today: I'm leaving. Tomorrow: I'll be back... Understand?” She let a few seconds pass to see how it'll responded.

It had its hands together, one finger scratching the joint of a knuckle on its exposed hand. Its noises could be heard at a lower volume and the rays from its head shrank and extended in a wave movement. It finally reacted “ah...uh-... o-okay... okay... *skgr* a- Yes! Alright... okay...” It nodded with a shy smile. “*skr... skr...* um- I-... if- If my friend says- *kr* says they're coming back, then they're coming back! Ahaha...” It tried to return to a more cheerful voice. It sounded like it said it more to themselves than to anyone else. “Ri...ght... friend?”

"Sure." Fern nodded, tilting their head to the side.

“...” “...Do you promise...?”

“Yes.”

“...You promise you'll be back here tomorrow?”

“Yes, I'll be back here tomorrow.”

“R-really?”

“Yes, really.”

“Do you really promis-?”

"Yes!" Sun jumped back, its eyes and shoulders hunched and it looked in fear at Fern. “Sorry...” She sighed “I promise. I really, truly, really, truthfully promise that I will be back. Tomorrow morning I promise you I'll be right here.” Sun looked at Fern expectantly. “...” “Word.” Fern held up their hand in promise. Sun imitated the gesture “Okay?”

Its expression brightened, the rays came out again and its posture relaxed. “Okay, y-yeah, okay! W-we'll see each other tomorrow!” It confirmed.

Fern was relieved to hear Sun finally understand and breathed out a sigh of relief. “Okay, then... I'll get going, alright? Bye.” She waved goodbye as she headed towards the doors.

“¡Ah! Uh... Can you close the doors on your way out? The doors have to be closed if no one's here...”

“Yeah.” She grabbed the door handles and pushed them.

“U-um- S-see ya!” It said waving its hand in the air.

"See you tomorrow." Fern confirmed one last time, “Bye, Sun.”

Sun stood there, waving timidly into the air, watching as its new (apparently) friend disappeared after closing the fake castle doors. It stopped waving “...” “Who's Sun?”

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Fern was back on the first elevator, the one that wasn't working and, naturally, she hadn't forgotten their beloved and much missed crowbar. She made a long descent to the bottom of the pit using the stairs on the wall to get it back and climb back up. She sighed, “Next time, I'm bringing two crowbars.” She climbed back up to the roof of the elevator and entered through the emergency hatch to reach floor L2. After coming out of it, she stopped in front of the doors to look at the state of the crowbar more calmly 'Wow, it's pretty good for having fallen from 30 me-' *SKREEEEEENNNNNNGG* Fern flinched at the sound and turned to look at the elevator.

*SKREEENNNGG NNNGG NNNGGGGGGGgggggggggg.......*

*...*

*...*

*...*

*BOOMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.............*

“...”

Fern stared with their eyes wide open at the now empty elevator shaft. She looked at the crowbar in their hand. She decides to put it away and return home. We aren't going to think about how she narrowly escaped that, no. If she had taken few more seconds to come out and turns into mush, in an elevator pit, in an abandoned facility, in a building not even its mother knows, in the middle of nowhere. Nope! We aren't going to think about that, better to get out. Down the stairs, straight ahead to the right. Fresh air here she goes.

As soon as she left, Fern felt a pressure release from their head. Just a few meters away from the entrance she felt like she had to sit down and take off their backpack before getting where she had parked their hovercraft, she needed clean air. The fresh air helped them clear their head and thoughts. She hadn't realized until now how overwhelmed she was feeling being in there, apart from the recent scare with the elevator, which has also made them feel anguish.

She looks at the clock, it's past one o'clock in the afternoon. She should eat something if she's driving home after all that walking, climbing, and running. She gets up from the ground and drags the backpack along with their body to collapse in the car so she can eat there. It's a little harder to carry the backpack with the extra weight of the tools she has been collecting on the way back (hey, they were free). She takes off their gloves and digs through their backpack to take out the multipurpose knife, the lunch box containing the chicken with rice she had prepared in the early morning and an apple, some of the rice has stuck to the lid of the lunchbox and she scratches it off with the fork. She spends a few minutes digging into the food until she finally decides to bring a portion to their mouth.

Although she decided not to worry for the moment, Fern can't help but think of the robot trapped and abandoned at the bottom of the building... who's alone again. Should she really come back tomorrow? Yes, she promised, but, what difference would it make if she just pretended nothing happened? What consequences could there be-? In fact- Fern would be suffering consequences for taking responsibility for a defective and damaged robot. Bots themselves are already a pain in the ass to maintain and the lack of bot rights management doesn't help, there is nothing that protects them; there's no way to get good insurance for them, especially for models from 5 years ago. If your bot is older than that you better have a complete manual stuck in your head on how to solve any absolute damage or problem it may suffer, because if not, you're both very screwed.

Speaking of which, how is Fern supposed to repair a robot as broken as Sun is? Especially one made by Fazbear Entertainment, the bastards make their own unique tools and parts of exclusive use for their company. You can't find them anywhere. It would be impossible to repair one of their animatronics unless she made each piece by hand and- um- no. Thank you. Is Sun even in saveable condition? Would it even be worth it? Even in the hypothetical case that she managed to save it, what would she do next? She doesn't have space at home for a robot that's taller than 2 meters. There is the machine refuge, yes, but...

...

Could she even help them? Without compatible or interchangeable parts I highly doubt it. It would end up turning into useless scrap metal. Not much differece from what awaits for it inside. There really wouldn't be any difference between leaving it here or taking it to the city.

Nobody knows it's there.

...

Fern knows.

...

But no one else knows of its existence. Who would care?

...

It's down there suffering and nobody knows.

...

Fern knows.

...

Without realizing it she had stopped eating and was just playing with the fork. Let's see, on one hand we have: a damaged, defective and hyperactive robot in an abandoned facility in very poor condition an... give it an hour and a half by hovercraft away from the city, without much chance of repair or survival in or out of this place, not to mention the lack of knowledge about its model. On the other hand we have: guilt.

On the one hand: Fern wouldn't feel right just leaving it here, Sun has autonomy and in the time they have known each other it has demonstrated enough intelligence to have its own opinions and make decisions for itself, it clearly has a developed AI so it is capable of feeling emotions; in other words, its suffering is real and it is morally wrong to leave it like this. On the other hand: she wouldn't know where to put it, as said before, there is no space at home and Fern has neither the resources nor the time to take care of it, they wouldn't accept it in a job or company because it already belongs to one, on top of it with a bad reputation. The refuge is an option but it wouldn't help much, it could end up becoming a burden and may not end up getting along with the other bots that are already there.

What will win in the end? Rationality or morality? The crushing and tormenting feeling of guilt! Of course! That's why Fern is sitting curled up in a ball, perforating with their gaze at the half-eaten rice and chicken, unable to make up their mind. She could at least try. Try... something. Even if it's just, paying them a visit? She already promised them that she would come back tomorrow. At the very least she should go see them tomorrow, she doesn't have to go every time, she doesn't have to repair it either. Maybe keeping company is enough? From the looks of it, it doesn't seem like it has much of its lifespan left... Oh God, she's really considering doing this.

For now, Fern will worry about finishing their meal and driving back to the town. She'll think better about it when she gets home.

[savannahrose223]

Chapter : prologue

For the spooky bitches who always thought Jeon Jungkook was swinging a horse cock and would fuck like a demon. He knows you can be a good girl and a dirty slut at the same time.

Pain in the body quiets pain in the mind.

                 — PENELOPE DOUGLAS, KILLSWITCH

JUNGKOOK

They say the system fails everyone in one way or another. Everyone is traumatized by people as they grow up. It’s a part of life, of being human. It’s something older generations were more accepting of and my generation is intolerant to.

Everyone makes mistakes, even when those mistakes leave them dripping in the blood of others. Blood isn’t too bad though. I’m drawn to it in an unexplainable way. The crimson hue grows in my vision with each passing day.

There’s something inside me that I can’t identify, but every second, it grows.

I pass the mountains of trash bags in the hall and force myself to breathe through the scent of rotting food before making it to one of the only clean rooms in the house.

As soon as I step inside, I tear open the zipper of my backpack–barely held together by the seams–and pull out the air freshener refill I stole from the store on my walk home.

Mom would be so disappointed, but she’s dead so she can’t say much. It’s not like Seomi is going to put out the money to make this room more bearable for our guest. She stands up in the little gated pen she spends her days in and giggles when she sees me.

Bellatrix Routh Child. My only guess is that her parents are huge Harry Potter fans and decided to take one of those weird names and give it to their only daughter. I call her Trixie though.

Seomi is an extended-stay babysitter, but Trixie is the only one who stays for more than a few days at a time. Seomi only has one rule for the parents. They aren’t allowed in the house for obvious reasons.

It’s insane that people actually trust her to take care of their kids. Mom never would’ve left me with Seomi if she hadn’t died in that plane crash seven years ago.

Seomi, the legal guardian in question, is my much older step-sister. Rodney, Seomi’s dad, and Mom married shortly after I was born and I was told the only condition was that Seomi never be left alone with me.

I didn’t understand why, but I do now. Seomi is in her late twenties and she’s always on something and in a foul mood.

“Hey, Trixie,” I say as I plug in the air freshener before dropping my backpack. She claps her hands with joy before flashing a toothy grin my way.

I try to remind myself that babies are like dogs. They love you as long as you’re the one feeding them. However, every time I try to keep that in perspective–that Trixie doesn’t actually care that it’s me who came into the living room–it feels wrong.

She doesn’t smile like that for her parents when they pick her up once every couple weeks for a few days.

I do everything for Trixie even though it’s Seomi who is supposed to be taking care of her. If I left it up to my evil step-sister to tend to Trixie, she would starve and live in her own feces.

Trixie is a well behaved little girl. Before I leave for school, I give her breakfast, leave her with three cups of water, change her clothes, and empty her potty chair.

I leave school during lunch time to do the same things as I did in the morning except for changing her clothes. When I get home, it’s another repeat, except I tend to bring her with me to my room while I do homework or whatever else Seomi makes me do.

That’s usually only when we leave the house though. Good thing Seomi brought Mom’s bike here when she died. It’s one of those bikes with a little playpen attached to the back so I can take Trixie with me.

I don’t feel right leaving her here with Seomi. She doesn’t do anything and, when she does, it’s not good.

“Jungkook!” Seomi calls from across the house as I rub my stomach, feeling the ache of the bruises along the muscles. “Are you home?”

I grimace before reaching into the pen and I lift up Trixie who quickly hugs me. “Kook kook!” Her arms tighten around my neck and I get the sense that this little girl wants to protect me from the monster in the next room.

No one else sees it, but she does because she’s here all the time. She clings to me and gets so upset when her parents come for her. In some way, she knows that when she leaves, I’m alone with pure evil.

I should be counting down the days until I can leave, but I’m not. Leaving means abandoning Trixie and I don’t want to do that. I could tell her parents the truth, but they won’t care.

No one does as long as evil puts on a mask and pretends to be something it isn’t. A person can be kind, but people are too wrapped up in themselves to see someone crying out for help. I’ve been crying for years, but everyone ignores it. As long as Trixie is taken care of, I don’t mind taking the abuse.

At least, that’s what I tell myself.

“Are you hungry?” I ask before I set her on the floor outside her pen and squat down. Seomi doesn’t like it, but I keep all of Trixie’s snacks in here, so her friends don’t eat them all.

I can only steal so much with my backpack and I can’t steal from the same places or they might notice a pattern.

Trixie sits on her knees and claps as I open the cabinet doors in the entertainment center and pull out a box of graham crackers. Flipping open the top, I pull out two sheets before handing them to her.

Trixie shoves one in her mouth before she extends the other out to me, pleading in her doe eyes. She wants me to eat, too. I’ll eat later. This is her food.

“That’s yours,” I say, but she shakes her head and thrusts the graham cracker sheet at me again, adamantly.

I sigh in defeat before I take a small bite off the end. She mimics the move as if to say keep going. My stomach rumbles in agreement with her so I follow her unspoken request until the cracker is completely gone.

“Thank you,” I whisper to her before I press a kiss to her cheek. Then, she shoves an entire graham cracker in her mouth, but it's too big. Half of it falls out of her lips as she chews with a big smile across her face.

“Jungkook,” Seomi chastises as she stumbles into the room, clutching her robe around her body. The way she moves tells me everything I need to know. She’s halfway to passed out on the floor. It’s barely three.

“I was calling your name,” she slurs as she drops onto the sofa, groaning from the lumpy surface.

“I was taking care of Trixie.” I grab her cup from inside the pen and hand it to the toddler as she grins up at me like I’m her favorite person in the world.

“Fucking brat has been making too much noise. I had a migraine all day.” Seomi presses a hand to her forehead with a groan, but I ignore her antics. A headache is no excuse for ignoring Trixie. She’s basically a baby.

She can’t take care of herself.

“I’ll make some food,” I offer before lifting Trixie into my arms.

“You’ll feel better after you eat.” Seomi sends me one of those smiles that tells me she’s thinking of something truly evil.

“Such a good boy.”

I duck my head and carry Trixie to the kitchen. I don’t have very many cooking skills, but I can make due with the basics.

Trixie doesn’t stop clinging to me until we’re away from Seomi and in the kitchen. I place Trixie in her high chair before I get to work on cleaning up the mess Seomi has made today.

Then, I start making food. Once I sit a plate on the kitchen table, I take Trixie and my plate of food up to my room before locking the door.

[realtorjamier]

20 Steps to Puppy-Proof Your Home!

Are you a victim of puppy love? You’re not alone! Puppies are adorable and bring out our playfulness. They keep us active and can grow to be loyal friends. But along with the joys of adopting a puppy comes with the inevitable wear and tear on your home, and – even more importantly – a great responsibility to keep these babies safe. Here are 20 ways to puppy-proof your home for their safety and your sanity.

Choose your veterinarian before you even bring your puppy home. Keep your regular vet and emergency vet’s contact information in an obvious place. Make sure your entire family and any pet sitters know where this list is.

Look at your house from your puppy’s perspective, literally, and figuratively. Your curious, inquisitive new friend sees things differently than you do. Get down on your hands and knees in every room to see what might attract them. Think like a puppy during this exercise!

Create a safe space for your pup. Crate training can give them a confined place to relax and retreat from overstimulation. Just like human babies, your canine baby needs to sleep!

Young puppies should be supervised when not in a crate. If you have to leave your puppy alone, make sure they have a secured space that contains appropriate toys, a little water, a comfortable area for resting, and a potty area.

Consider installing childproof locks and pet monitor cameras. Remember, your puppy is truly a baby/toddler.

Install baby gates for rooms that you just don’t want your puppy to have access to.

Keep trash secure and out of the way. The enticing smells wafting from your garbage are a puppy magnet. Your puppy could cause a disgusting mess by tearing your trash apart, and worse – they could ingest hazardous materials.

Keep them away from filled bathtubs which can be a drowning hazard until your puppy has learned to swim. Even toilets can be dangerous. Keep toilet lids down.

Hide things that you don’t want sharp puppy teeth to chew: cords, medicines, houseplants, chemicals, pest poisons, batteries, trash, detergent pods – even sugarless gum and chocolate can cause injury, illness, or death for your dog.

Here’s a partial list of the most common foods that can make dogs sick (vomiting, diarrhea, seizures) and in some cases can be fatally toxic:

Alcohol

Apricots, Balsam pears and Japanese plums

Avocados

Bacon

Chocolate

Coffee and tea

Cooked bones

Foods high in fat, sugar, or salt

Grapes and Raisins

Human vitamin supplements containing iron

Milk and dairy

Moldy food and yeast dough

Nuts – almonds and macadamia

Onions

Raw eggs and fish

Rhubarb and spinach

Tobacco products are also toxic, including gum and nicotine patches. 

Tomato and potato leaves and stems

Certain houseplants are also toxic. Here’s a partial list of common houseplants that can sicken or kill your puppy:

Azalea

Calla Lily (also Peace and Palm lilies)

Asparagus (a.k.a. Emerald Feather, Lace Fern, Sprengeri Fern, Plumosa Fern)

Elephant Ear

Aloe Vera

Ivy

Sowbread (Cyclamen)

Dieffenbachia (sometimes known as Dumb Cane)

Jade (also called Rubber Plant and Friendship Tree)

Poinsettia

Philodendron

Never allow your puppy to be outside unsupervised. 

Inspect your flora and fauna and research what might be poisonous for puppies. Some common culprits include:

Aconite

Belladonna

Buttercups

Chrysanthemum

Creeping Charlie

Daffodils

Delphinium

Elderberry

Foxglove

Gardenias

Hibiscus

Hyacinth

Hydrangea

Lily of the Valley

Marigolds

Oak

Oleander

Peonies

Philodendron

Poison ivy

Poison oak

Primroses

Rhododendron/Azaleas

Rhubarb

Sago Palm

Stinging nettle

Tomato

Tulips

White clover

Wisteria

Yew

Make sure pools are fenced in. Even baby pools and uncovered jacuzzis are hazardous.

Mow and maintain your yard. Tics are more likely to live in tall grass. Remember, if maintaining your yard means using fertilizers and pesticides, this could be unhealthy – especially after a recent treatment.

Watch out for temperature extremes – cold or hot – and weather events. 

Be on the lookout for animal predators.

Protecting your little canine guy or gal is paramount, but protecting your house from your puppy will create a more harmonious living environment. You don’t want to be constantly yelling at your dog – and they sure don’t want that either! Here are some ways to create a more durable home environment:

Install pet-friendly finishes and fabrics

Floors:

Ceramic or porcelain tile are scratch-resistant and nonporous (think puppy potty-training accidents), but make sure to apply a sealer twice a year to the grout – which can be more absorbent.

If you like wood, factory-finished floors weather better than true hardwood. Luxury vinyl planks are even hardier.

If you have wall-to-wall carpeting, buy some synthetic fabric rugs to use over these, at least during the potty training phase. Indoor-outdoor rugs are great because they are designed to be stain and odor proof. Low-pile wool rugs are also fairly wear-proof since they are naturally water-resistant and should be relatively easy to spot-clean.

Upholstery:

Fabric upholstery can be protected with a layer of Scotchgard, but adding a washable slipcover is your best bet. Removable cushions that can be routinely thrown in the wash are a good option, or simply drape a pet blanket over your couches and chairs.

Ultrasuede (a synthetic form of suede) is designed to be stain resistant and moderately resistant to scratch marks. Follow the manufacturer’s instructions for cleaning.

Leather doesn’t tend to absorb pet smells and is easy to clean, but can scratch easily. You might want to consider a distressed leather so that the wear from puppy claws won’t be as noticeable.

Create a specific area for pet bowls. A built-in area will not only keep the room tidier, but it will prevent you from tripping over bowls and spilling food and water everywhere.

Revisit this list and re-evaluate your home periodically – even when your puppy becomes an adult dog!

[briamichellewrites]

41

Bria was checked into the hospital for seventy-two hours after undergoing paperwork and a physical examination. Mike stayed with her for everything. He then hugged her and told her how proud he was of her for asking for help. I love you. She loved him, too. He watched her go back with a nurse with a small bag. She would have both group and individual therapy sessions, which he hoped would help her figure out what was going on.

During the intake process, she told the nurse she was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder with bipolar disorder, ADHD, and anxiety. She was also diagnosed with dyscalculia, but she didn’t know if that was relevant or not. The nurse wrote it down. She was given a private room that was stripped of anything she could use to hurt herself.

Mike got home to find the band enjoying Chinese food. They decided on that instead of pizza because they had tofu options. He thanked them for saving some food for him. How did it go with Bria? It went well. She was anxious, but that was to be expected. Other than that, she cooperated and was honest with the person doing the intake. Since she was voluntarily admitted, she could leave before the seventy-two hours were up. She wanted to see how it went before making that decision.

She was going to be supervised while taking her medications. Was she not taking them? He didn’t know because he never watched her take them. It was not something he thought he needed to do. As he ate, they continued hanging out and talking. He was so tired, he was happy to have seventy-two hours to rest. That made him feel a little guilty because it wasn’t her fault.

Phoenix seemed to read his mind. He reminded him to take care of himself and rest. They didn’t want him to be in the hospital for exhaustion. He thanked him and joked about him reading his mind. No, he was just looking out for him. Thank you. He truly appreciated it.

The guys helped him clean up their mess by bringing everything into the kitchen and throwing their trash away in the garbage. They told him to get some rest, as they left. He would. The house was quiet. It felt weird. He expected Bria to come downstairs or through the front door. Instead, she was getting the help she needed. Misty came to the door and sat down. She used her front paw to scratch the door. Human, I need to go to the bathroom.

With everything going on, he forgot about the animals. He got her leash and connected it to her collar before grabbing the potty bags. As he left his phone inside, he didn’t know that Brad had texted him because he hadn’t heard from Bria and he wanted to know that she was okay.

Hey, sorry. I took my dog for a walk and left my phone at home. Bria is getting mental health treatment. That’s all I am going to say to protect her privacy. I’ll let her know you texted me. – Mike

He understood and would wait for her reply. Jon phoned Brad to ask him if he heard from Bria. He relayed the message of her getting mental health treatment. That was all the information he had since her friend and housemate was respecting her privacy by not telling him that much. Neither of them knew what mental health treatment she needed. They talked about what they knew about her. Brad had an on-and-off friendship with her for years.

She mentioned something about having Borderline Personality Disorder, so Jon was going to look into what that was. They didn’t think she was using drugs or had an alcohol problem, so it wasn’t that. All they could do was wait. In the meantime, Jon went on his phone and did some research into Borderline Personality Disorder.

He had read about it before, but now he was doing some more research. It was a very complicated disorder that was related to trauma in childhood, namely abuse or neglect. He learned that people were afraid of real or imagined abandonment and rejection, had problems regulating their emotions, were impulsive, had an unstable self-image, and had a pattern of unstable relationships. They saw people as being either bad or good with no gray area.

They had “favorite people”, who they relied on for comfort, guidance, and validation. That person could be anyone. That was called idealization. They had problems with not knowing or understanding boundaries. Asking for space could mean rejection or abandonment. That led to them devaluing their relationships, friendships, or even family members.

They were also more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol; self-harm or attempt suicide. The final thing he learned was that they were more likely to be sexually active. He wondered if he was her favorite person and if she understood that he had to eventually go back to New Jersey to be with his family. Since he didn’t know where she was, he would have to wait to talk to her. He hoped that she was okay and getting the help she needed.

Mike seemed like he had a good night’s sleep the next morning. He laughed and admitted he had. The cats slept in Bria’s room as usual. They didn’t seem to understand what was happening. All they knew was that she wasn’t there. After taking Misty on a walk, he got ready for bed. He was going to go to the hospital the following day for a meeting with her and whoever was in charge.

It was just to see how she was doing and if she needed to stay longer. Brad reached out to him and asked him where she was. What did he tell him? He told him that she was getting mental health treatment. Since he didn’t have her permission to give specifics, he didn’t. Phoenix agreed that was smart. It should be her decision whether or not she wanted him to know. The band agreed. As usual, the cats roamed in and out of the room looking for attention.

Bria learned that her medications were not working properly. That was why she was acting out and was having trouble. She was given a new medication, which helped balance the chemicals in her brain. For the first time in weeks, she could see the light at the end of the tunnel. Her moods were more stable, as she was thinking more clearly and rationally.

She was also put on a diet to help her symptoms improve. The psychiatrist listened to her concerns about being on a diet because of the risk of developing an eating disorder. She had problems with becoming hyper-fixated on certain things and she was worried about it becoming an obsession. The psychiatrist appreciated her concerns. This diet would not be about losing weight. It was about giving herself the benefits her brain needed through food.

She decided to try it. Who made the meals where she lived? It was her and her housemate. They switched off regularly. It just depended on their schedules and who was in the mood to cook. She didn’t think he would have a problem with her having a new diet plan.

During the day, she did activities like coloring with crayons, watching television, and doing puzzles. She ate dinner, breakfast, and lunch with the other patients. There were staff around everywhere. The only privacy she had was in her room. She was highly encouraged to participate in the activities because they would take her mind off of being in the hospital.

That was true. It also kept her from getting bored. The entire day was structured from the time she woke up to the time she went to bed. Everyone got up at the same time and went to bed at the same time. The first night, she couldn’t sleep because she wasn’t at home. She would have to catch up on sleep when she got back to Mike’s. Until then, she went back to coloring with crayons while she waited for lunch with the other patients.

@zoeykaytesmom @feelingsofaithless @alina-dixon @fiickle-nia @boricuacherry-blog

[monsieuremjaydee]

The Squatty Potty

I’ve been living with Staceyann and her husband Rick in New Jersey ever since I left my dorm at Columbia back in January. They don’t charge me rent as long as I chip in on the groceries and electrical bill, so it’s good deal. I met them at an AA meeting some years back.

Typical north Jersey trash. Staceyann’s in her mid-40s. Purple-black hair, tattoos on her arms, on her legs, on her chest, on her neck, smokes Newport 100s, molested by her junkie father’s buddies as a child. Rick about the same age, a little on the heavy side, long hair, likes to gamble, not too quick in the head because he spent more than half his life smoking PCP mixed with crack. Loves Bob Dylan.

I live in a little annexed room where the hot water heater is down in their basement. I’ve got a twin size bed with a mattress so worn out that every time I shift in my sleep the springs poke through and wake me up. I’m confined to the downstairs bathroom because one of their kids is—

I should also mention that Staceyann and Rick have three kids. All boys, somewhere between the ages of ten and sixteen. I find it impossible to accurately guess a child’s age and never once found myself anywhere near sufficiently interested when listening to people yap about their kids to even attempt to commit such useless information to memory. I never understood why people make such a fuss about their children. They inadvertently end up making you hate them by acting like they’re the best kids to ever walk the earth. Right. And when they grow up to be dimwitted imbeciles, out come the excuses. ADHD, Asperger’s, anxiety, depression, a chronically itchy sphincter. How about bad parenting? Ever try that one? You wheel your strollers around acting like you’ve got the queen of England in there, demanding that everyone get out of your way, growling at anyone who doesn’t move or make a big deal about your boring child — excuse me, don’t you see I have a baby here? Yes, I can see your mediocre baby and I’m deeply unimpressed. Now please, stop acting like you’ve achieved something extraordinary by plopping out a fetus. Congratulations. A standing ovation for doing exactly what human beings have consistently done since long before they knew how to start a fire. We only apologize for not applauding each time you remember to breathe. What I’m really trying to say here is that one of Staceyann and Rick’s kids isn’t fully there. I’m not exactly sure what’s wrong with him but let’s just say that if this was happening in ancient Sparta, he’d go flying off a cliff.

And so, as you can imagine things can get a bit messy in the bathroom and that’s why I use the one downstairs. No worries there, it lacks nothing. I mean, it did at one point lack a squatty potty and that’s the whole point of this story, but otherwise no complaints. Now, as a broke recent college grad who studied the most useless major on the planet, I wasn’t exactly in the position to buy myself one due to my obvious financial constraints.  

Until one morning right around my birthday when Rick barged into the basement. “Wake up!” he started shaking me. What the hell? “Wake up, wake up, wake up,” he wouldn’t quit. “You wanna make two bills?” he says once my eyes open.

But I was in such an immensely deep sleep, the kind that makes your eyelids feel like a million pounds. The kind that if you manage to somehow open your eyes, your vision refuses to focus, you’re disoriented, your mind refuses to align—where am I? is all you can think—your entire body just refuses.

“No thanks,” I mumbled, then turned around and instantly began dreaming about a brown horse who’s lying in bed on his back under the covers reading the February edition of Seventeen Magazine. Hot chocolate steaming on the nightstand.

It’s not that I didn’t NEED the money… It’s that it was 7am on Sunday. Who the hell gets out of bed at 7am on Sunday!

“Five,” I heard Rick’s voice echoing inside the horse’s small but trendy bedroom. “You don’t wanna make five hundred dollars? It’ll take you thirty minutes for god’s sake.”

That calculates to one thousand dollars an hour, which in turn calculates to over two million dollars a year if working forty hours per week. The horse looked at me from under his spectacles, waiting.

“Yea,” I sat up.

“Here.” Rick handed me a flat black box about the size of a frozen dinner. “Take this and drive down to Dunkin’ Donuts in Clifton.”

“There’s like five Dunkin’ Donuts in Clifton,” I yawned.

“The one on Clifton Avenue.”

“The one across from the police station?”

“Exactly,” Rick confirmed. “A guy’ll meet you there. Black Range Rover. Just hop in, hand him the box, he’ll give you cash. Eighteen grand. Count it.”

“Now?” I asked, rubbing my eyes.

“He’ll be there in ten minutes. I can’t go myself, otherwise I would.”

I peaked in the box. “Okay.” I got up, got dressed, got in Rick’s beat up ’98 champagne Maxima, drove to Clifton, forgot to brush my teeth.

Everything went smooth. Back in 28 minutes.

“Here,” I handed Rick the cash. He peeled off five bills. “Pleasure doing business with you,” I said while putting the Washingtons in my pocket. Then went downstairs and back to sleep.

The next day I bought myself a squatty potty as a birthday gift. The thing is great. Nothing gets left behind if you know wat I mean. Nothing.

[obscurexodd]

The signs as things that I did not learn until adulthood

Aries: Schwarzenegger had a himbo era. That's what inspired this post but not why I'm giving it to Aries. You guys just have that energy. Own it, I guess. You might end up being a Governator idfk

Taurus: That plantains are real and not just the sims way of saying banana. I thought this was just the sims creators being silly.

Gemini: Those toads that shoot blood out of their eyes are actually lizards. Also that scorpions are arachnids. And that I will always know less about this general topic than any mountain redneck I've encountered.

Cancer: I still don't really know who Al Gore is. Like, I kinda do, but most of that knowledge comes from South Park. I have learned in adulthood that knowing things like that has very little impact on my life, much to the contrary of what I learned in school, and my brain cells are few in number and already working overtime. I don't think I could learn about this if I tried.

Leo: That I actually am hot af I just have low self esteem. Also that you can push tampons out with your muscles. Flex that sex biiitch

Virgo: Not knowing many adult things is actually not that abnormal and we all Google what to do when something happens. Or we call our parents, friends, or grandma. Then we do our best and that's usually enough.

Libra: The cuter that something is, the more likely it is to destroy your life. Soft fluffy blanket be so fall aesthetic but will kill you from heat stroke at night. Puppies will destroy everything they can and will continue to do so unless you work with them on it. Attractive humans - self explanatory. Not a guarantee it'll ruin your life, but if you have a gambling problem don't get a puppy.

Scorpio: Teen angst doesn't go away it just becomes adult angst about doing the dishes and how you have to work your ass off to pay rent but then you go to the grocery store and think "Fuck, I need trash bags and paper towels" and you come to hold a deep seated hatred for these things. The teen angst that you formerly held for your parents is now transferred to toilet paper.

Sagittarius: If someone is staring at you, stare back. More aggressively. Scare them off. If they're a creep, you've now made them aware that you're aware of them. If they're just rude/judgmental, you've put not only the fear of God in them but the fear of you . You don't have to even do anything. It's about the eye contact. Works every time I'm out in public and someone is annoying me.

Capricorn: If you put the fucking lid down in a port a potty the smell vents out, like it is supposed to because that's why the vent is there in the first place. And every time you've gone into one with the lid up, that smell of nastiness could've been a lil less awful but the other person ruined it. I always knew that if you flush with the lid open you get particles everywhere, including what you wipe your face/body with and what you use to brush your teeth, but I didn't know about the port a potty thing. Now that I do I'm angry at everyone else.

Aquarius: People die while/from shitting way, way more often than I thought would ever be possible. Specifically I learned this because it's very possible that the "lol Elvis died on the toilet" thing is not only true but that due to the combination of both his heart being weakened by substance abuse and that he was trying to push out four months worth of shit, it caused his heart attack. And people also death by diarrhea. It counts for 1 in 9 deaths of children under the age of five worldwide.

Pisces: Buttermilk doesn't actually have butter. I learned this and thought to myself "Did you really just think that it was milk with a stick of butter in it?" only to realize that, yes, that is exactly what I thought. I had never examined this thought further.

[odetoavillan]

In The Beginning

     There was nothing but darkness... hate... pain... hunger... all consuming, nothing but darkness, pain, and... Kenobi.

    Darth Maul came out of his hate to see a young human woman about his age kneeling beside him. He felt burning pain on evey neve in his body.

          "I'm sorry..." she whispered. He could feel her hands on his midsection. He looked down to see she had found his lower half and was healing it together with him. She grew pale and slumped over beside him.

          "I cant feel my legs." He panted.

          "I know... I'm sorry, I can't do anymore... I need time to recover, this place is draining me." She panted falling beside him on the trash covered ground. "You're heal enough that your body can start mending on its own... but it'll take years without my help." She coughed. "Just give me a minute... and I'll get us off this trash heap." She coughed again before passing out.

     Darth Maul tried to move his legs, but the pain caused him to black out.

     When Darth Maul woke again he was in a small hut of a house books and clothes and dishes littered every avaliable space. The young woman approached him with a plate of food.

          "I think you're a zabrak... I read on the holonet that you guys are carnivores... so I made some easy to digest meat." She explained. Maul pushed himself up as she approached. 

          "What is this disgusting hovle. " He spat as she set the plate on a pillow she placed on his lap.

          "My home... sorry it's not much and it's not tidy... but it's better than where you were." She reasoned, her cheeks redening with nerves, and her head hung low. Maul sneered at her, but then sensed her thoughts, they were quite loud, they were of him with a terrifying spider like lower half, and the feeling of absolute insanity hit him like a bolt of force lightning. He realized that this vision could have and would have been his fate had she not saved him.

          "We're you just in my head?" She questioned with a frown. Maul was minutely impressed.

          "You are force sensitive..." Maul growled, his back ached so bad he wanted to scream, he mustn't show weakness. She studied him a moment before moving pillows and blankets to support his aching back. He huffed in reliefe, feeling sweat prickling across his upper lip and shoulders, his head dizzy.

         "Whats the force?" She asked. Maul growled lightly.

          "Idiot..." He hissed.

         "Asshole..." she grumbled to herself as she gathered up a jacket and a satchel. Maul could hear her insault just the same. "Well I have to get to work." she sighed standing. "I wont be back for 8 or more hours... do you have to go potty before I go?" She asked. Maul glared at her. "Ok well I set up this bucket here beside your bed you can use... I also left jerky and water for you to munch on... and a couple empty note and sketch books." she explained awkwardly, walking out of the hut.

     Maul tried to use the force a few times, but it cause him so much searing pain... the kind he could not ignore, so he focused on meditation instead.

          "Hi sorry! You're probably starving!" She belted walking into the hut, Maul slowly opened his eyes and glared at her. "oh my gosh I'm so sorry! We're you sleeping." She gasped covering her mouth. Maul snorted at her.

          "Meditating." He hissed at her. She handed him a box of food.

        "Here, have this as an appetizer, I'll get supper started... I tried Meditating once, ya know, to stop an anxiety attack... it didn't work." She stated pulling together ingredients for the meal.

          "Stop speaking to me... I grow weary of your mindless prattling." Maul growled. She shot a short glare over her shoulder at him but kept quiet, as he started meditating again.

     'What a terrible house guest.' She thought as she continued working, her mind drifted as she started daydreaming, and humming. Maul huffed angrily.

         "Shut up!" He raged.

         "I didn't say anything!" She protested turning sharply toward him.

         "I don't care! Shut up and stop thinking!" He growled. She huffed and slammed a couple of things before she stopped and started back to her cooking.

[whatgaviiformes]

Firefly’s Glow - Part 1/?

For @janetm74 and @tsarinatorment and because I am desperate to post something to get my groove going again.

 📦 trapped in a box requested by Janetm74 / How about ⏳ - time’s running out and 📦 - trapped in a box with some Scott&Gordon? – requested by Tsarinatorment

A/N: Author’s Note - Okay, first I hope it’s ok that I combined these asks. Second, I know this is strange. End notes included to explain. Also, I have and by extension Gordon has a potty mouth. I promise I edited most of them out. 

*****

Less than a minute.

Gordon could work miracles in less than a minute. In 51.2 seconds, he went from Gordon Tracy, son of the late Jefferson Tracy, to Gordon Tracy, Olympic Gold Medalist representing the United States of America. He’d let the muscular pull, push, recovery rhythm of the butterfly stroke propel him past world records.

But of course he never really had to think about how to move through water.

Focus.

He had shackles to pick.

“You’re running out of time, Gordon Tracy.”

Damn it all.

Now the Hood was just being rude. It was Virgil’s face and voice that taunted him– though it really wasn’t his voice because Virgil could never speak to Gordon with a tone so laced with malice. Ire, sure. Hatred and malevolence, no way in hell.

Gordon would tear the Hood apart for stealing his brother’s voice, starting with a solid right hook in his snickering mug once he got out this.

Arms crossed, the Hood had a timer in one hand and an unrecognizable gun in the other. Though Gordon knew guns, he couldn’t recognize this one from the quick glance he’d spared. He’d had no time to look.

35 seconds.

He could do this. In that amount of time he’d saved an electrified Thunderbird 2 from a free fall by redocking his pod in the plummeting behemoth and connecting their computer systems to regain control. He hadn’t needed time to think, just react – his brother’s life was dependent on Thunderbird 2’s survival.

His brother whose voice was stolen by a madman.

“My, my, didn’t my niece teach you better than that?”

Leave Kayo out of this, you stupid, greedy, motherf - His survival thus far had been a little bit Kayo, a little bit Parker, and a whole lot of Brains. Parker for the lock picking knowledge, Kayo for the speed and survival tactics, Brains for the lock pick built into the bottom of his boots.

And sure, maybe a little bit of his own survival training helped.

A minute to remove the shackles in exchange for freedom. 60 seconds. Gordon could save lives in 60 seconds. He can, and will, save his own.

15 seconds left.

“Tick tock.”

His hands fumbled with the small pick between his fingers and the awkward angle of a lock he couldn’t even see, only feel.

8

7

6

Click!

The shackles came free and fell to the ground with a clatter. Gordon panted, his heart pounding in his chest.

“Very good. Perhaps, you have some worth to me after all.”

“But-”

“Oh, I was never going to let you go, Gordon Tracy. But thank you for the…” Virgil-that’s-not-really-Virgil waved a hand towards Gordon’s shoes. “Demonstration.”

Rage welled up inside him.

It was Virgil’s face, sure, but Gordon had punched Virgil before. Hell, Virgil had punched him before. And the man in front of him wasn’t really Virgil anyway. So, Gordon launched himself at the Hood, preparing to attack.

In his anger, he’d forgotten about the gun. He wouldn’t have entered a gunfight with his fists if he remembered. Taking out your opponent 101.  His WASP superior officers would have been sorely disappointed in him.

Sans his standard yellow baldric (because the Hood had taken that from him too), Gordon gasped at the sudden impact that hit his chest. Even though the projectile’s force wasn’t enough to drive him back, the gun, intended for mid-range, packed a hell of a punch, and there was a terrifying moment when Gordon looked down at his body and expected to see blood. Instead, the dart protruding from his left pectoral carried a blue liquid, an injection of something. He didn’t know what, and somehow, that thought was even less comforting.

The swift lethargy that flowed through his muscles slowed him as the drug hit.

Gordon crumpled to the dirty cement floor as Virgil cackled in his ear, and all went black.

*****

Gordon’s love of the sea came first from the fact that the sea was so different from the plains of Kansas, secondly that it was a part of the Earth itself he loved so much. and thirdly – and most importantly– because the first time he stepped into the rushing waves of the ocean it had been like finally learning to breathe.

Gordon had learned to appreciate all of Earth’s life at a young age. He was never a rescue scout like Scott, as there was a bit too much focus on badgework for his tastes, but his youth was spent making mud pies, watching bird’s nests, and observing caterpillar chrysalises all the same.

The summer Gordon was six, Scotty had taken him out to the barn late at night and showed him how to make a lantern of fireflies. Their adventure pack (really Scott’s school bag, repurposed) held a flashlight, mason jars, a couple pieces of mesh to put overtop the glass, and two bug nets.  

No brothers were allowed – this was for him and Scotty only.

He’d abandoned the bug net for his hands pretty quickly, and within a few minutes, he’d managed to catch five or so for his lightning bug lantern. Of course, Scott had managed to catch more because he was older and also because he’d shared this memory with all his brothers and this was only Gordon’s first time.

It had been so pretty, the fireflies dancing in the mason jar, their lights slowly dimming and brightening in a mellow cadence that soothed his soul. But then, he realized their little bodies, which were used to flying around in the expanse of the sky, were suddenly confined to the glass container of the jar. And he saw not beauty but pain.  

It was a lovely, bittersweet memory he kept close to his heart because it represented a key moment of his youth: first growing up with Scott as an older brother and also the first time he’d felt a creature’s cry reach him. It was the same wail he felt when he read about oil spills off the coast of Alaska and illegal fishing nets that should not still be in use, and, god, the absolute trash humanity left in the oceans for poor sea turtles to choke over.

Scott hadn’t understood where the tears came from suddenly, but Gordon remembered his brother kneeling in front of him so their eyesight was level, and he recalled him asking what happened and what Gordon needed, completely uncaring that his jeans were getting dirty in the fertilized soil.  And the best thing about Scott was that he was the type of older brother that didn’t laugh or ignore him when Gordon said “they want out” through blubbering tears. He just helped Gordon release their fireflies back into the night, and instead they spent their evening counting their happy flickering until the numbers lulled Gordon to sleep.

The memory faded; the fireflies behind his eyes converged to a fragment on the other side of his lids, and a piercing white struck his brain with each blink as he awoke.

His feet were cold. The Hood had stolen his boots. Of freaking course. His next realization was that the rest of him was not as cold as his feet. In fact, that light coming in through the window was making his face and neck feel quite flushed.

It was the light that told him he was somewhere new. Previously the Hood had kept him locked in the darkness in his cell.

He groaned, shifting to sit up and look around his new abode, which was compact and with no angles to define the walls. But it was all glass, and so the window he thought was present was actually the room itself. And the floor he realized, feeling the material against the pads of his feet as he stood, was also glass.

His investigation was short lived, and Gordon hissed as the attempt to put weight on his left foot shot a laser of pain up through his ankle.

God, the Hood must have really thrown him in here, he thought.

He looked up.

No, not thrown. Dropped.

The ceiling of the room was not a ceiling at all, but the top of a bottle where the glass curved inward and then continued upward.

It was not quite what he imagined…. being the test subject of a madman. Maybe a tube or a cage or the cell where he was before would make sense, but a human-sized glass bottle?  He felt like one of the fireflies he was just dreaming of, and of course, the Hood had to steal that memory too, in addition to his baldric, his boots, and his brother’s face.

As Gordon squinted to peer past the glass, the light that had been penetrating his new home suddenly darkened with a singular brown eye filling the expanse of the vessel, disorienting the shape so that the pupil was huge and the iris round, and the rest was…well, still huge just not as much so.

Fire raced through his ankle as he backed up two steps, stumbling into the back of the bottle.

“Gordon?” The eye said in a deep rumble.

The hell? He knew that voice.

“Fuse?”

“Shit, man, you’re tiny.”

His instinct was to look at his hands, but of course, they were the same from his perspective, though perhaps a bit grimier than they were before he was captured, tossed in a cell, and then forced to pick his way out of his shackles for no reason other than the Hood’s demented sense of pleasure.

The eye was then replaced with Fuse’s hand as he picked up the bottle to clasp it by the neck and pull it off of what was clearly a high shelf, with Gordon still inside.

Everything was not okay.

He was not okay.

It was never a human-sized bottle, and as his world shifted with Fuse raising the glass, Gordon realized he was lucky if he was half a foot tall.

END PART 1

End note:  In effort to think outside the box for in a box my brain went straight to pocket!Gordon, so I went angsty Arrietty/the Borrowers vibes. There’s a more literal box planned later, I promise, and more Scott as requested. But for now, hope this helps do the job. Also don’t skip over the first part, POCKET!GORDON. 😊

Part 2

[xxlovendreamsxx]

Ways my sister’s bf is a trash human being:

He won’t help his in-laws unpack a truck full of heavy baby stuff when one can’t even lift heavy things in the first place

He won’t even take walks with his pregnant gf who is PREGNANT WITH TWINS AND THE ROADS ARE ICY AS FUCK WHERE THEY LIVE SO IT’S NOT SAFE FOR HER TO GO ALONE

He whines that she snores and nudges her awake when she does

He is noisy as FUCK when he gets up at 7 am, slamming cupboards and shit with no regard to anybody else in the house but if the roles are reversed, he’ll pout and be grumpy as hell

He will make important decisions about his life with my sister with his parents but WITHOUT THE INPUT FROM MY SISTER

He has no respect for anyone other than his own family

He won’t even defend her when his family treats my sister like trash

Hell, he’s been treating her like trash for 13 years

He’ll pout and be grumpy when my sister visits our family, and especially when she goes shopping (which she can’t do where she lives because there’s like no shops).

He doesn’t lift one fucking finger to help with cooking

He didn’t even lift a finger to comfort my sister in a fucking crisis when she was bawling her eyes out and was just playing on his phone

HE DIDN’T SET UP MOST OF THE BABY ROOM WHEN MY SISTER IS 8 MONTHS PREGNANT AND EXPECTED TO GIVE BIRTH IN THE NEXT WEEK OR TWO LIKE HELLOOOOO YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO SET THIS UP WAY BEFORE???????

He won’t even let out the dog much when he’s alone in the house and is a huge reason why their dog wasn’t potty trained for most of his life and still isn’t sometimes

He literally won’t even bring her to her prenatal doctor appointments

Oh yeah also HE NEVER ACTUALLY PROPOSED TO HER. Not only did he just get her a ring as a christmas present, no getting down on one knee or whatever, but when she asked if that meant they were engaged now he said yes (can you say the least fucking romantic thing EVER?)--and that was a fucking lie. He only bought her a ring to shut her the fuck up--like 4-5 years later he said he didn’t want to marry her when she bought him an engagement ring also. 

I hate hate hate hate him and really hope someday they separate so I never have to see his stupid selfish ass again

My sister deserves the world and at least someone who is decent and helps but he does NOTHING and treats her like trash, I can’t imagine he’ll be a good father.

[doberbutts]

smokemirrorswolves replied to your post

“The rising price of puppies is so heartbreaking for a lot of people....”

@doberbutts hey, if you had time at some point, would you care to break down what exactly is reflected in the price of a purebred puppy? I think a lot of people are struggling to imagine what could cost that amount of money, me among them tbh. thank you!

Sure, though I don’t breed, so it’s very possible I might be missing something!

Cost of the litter itself:

whelping box with or without rails

pen

potty supplies for puppies- pads, litter, bags, scoopers, etc

heating pads or lamps

formula and bottles (just in case)

medications and supplements (not always needed, good to have on hand)

blankets, beds

toys

colored puppy collars for identification (not always needed)

vaccinations (at least the first one)

deworming (several)

food (for mom AND pups)

temperament testing (if the breeder does not do it themselves- and even if they do, one must learn how which usually costs $$ or time to be mentored)

if puppy culture is used, understand that it costs a lot of money to get ahold of the materials for it

even if it is not used, proper early socialization, stress response, training and drives, etc require time, money, knowledge, and equipment

at least one vet check before going home

registration with AKC

microchip (some breeders have you do it but all of my breeder puppies had this done before going home)

cropping/docking (if applicable, understand this is why dobes cost so much bc that’s $400-700 PER PUPPY unless the vet cuts you a deal for doing the whole litter)

increased water and electric and trash costs - utilities ain’t cheap

overall time spent with the puppies (most breeders if not retired take off work to whelp and raise a litter... that’s 8+ weeks of either vacation pay or no pay at all)

travel costs to and from vets, new owners, etc

Cost of PRODUCING the litter:

stud dog fee (not applicable if using their own stud)

health testing on the parents (variable, can be as low as $100 per parent or as high as several thousand, obv if they don’t own the stud they don’t pay for that)

if using live cover- either travelling to the stud or having the stud go there

if using AI- that’s already pretty expensive

C-section (if applicable, always good to have the money on hand just in case)

multiple vet visits and travel costs for the bitch (confirm pregnancy, canine STI check, making sure to breed when she’s hormonal most likely to conceive, etc)

supplements and high quality food for the bitch

medications to help induce or ease labor

treatments to help the bitch let milk down or clear an infected/impacted teat

medical supplies for the human to ensure a sanitary and safe environment to whelp (gloves etc)

Cost of the parents:

general care (food, physicals, vaccinations, etc)

titling (if applicable)

training

obtaining the dog in the first place

So what does this exactly mean? Let’s say a low-ball estimate is $8000 for the first two factors combined (so not cost of parents) (and that IS a fairly low estimate, at least for dobermans). Now let’s say that the bitch produces 8 puppies. Selling them at $1000 apiece means the breeder breaks even, and that also means time and money was actually lost as the cost sunk into the parents hasn’t been factored in yet.

Let’s say the breeder owns both parents and bought them at $1000 each. The low end of the average cost per year for dogs is $1500- so with both dogs that’s $3000 per year. Dogs should be at least two years old before breeding, so we’re at $6000 (general care) + $2000 (purchase price) if this is the first litter for both of them. Titling can really depend, some breeds title very quickly and easily for under $1000. Others take several thousands to finish. Let’s just say an incredibly conservative estimate is $500 per dog- we’re now at $9000 for the cost of the parents.

So if that breeder wants to break even, they can’t even just double the price ($2000 per puppy) because they’re still taking a $1000 loss. Now the puppies need to cost $2125.

Let’s hope a puppy doesn’t die, or that no fluke accidents or weird health concerns pop up, because things are about to get even more expensive very quickly if that happens. Let’s say the breeder wants to keep one- that means that there are actually 7 puppies that can be sold, not 8. Now the puppies have to cost roughly $2430 and there’s a very slight profit of about $10 there.

What if they don’t own both parents, just the bitch? Well that takes our estimations down by half, so now the litter cost $12500 to make. The 7 puppies can be priced all the way down to $1785 while taking a loss of a couple dollars. Oops, the stud owner wants one on top of their stud fee, make that 6 puppies- now they’re back up to over $2000 again.

Remember when I said these are low estimates? Okay, so let’s gauge high estimates:

Even with no complications the highest I’ve seen for total breeding expenses was $25000. Even if you sell all 8 puppies at cost, so a zero profit margin... that’s $3125 per puppy.

God help you, and your buyers, if your bitch whelps less than that, if there’s a complication, if for whatever reason a puppy is not sellable.

Creed’s breeder spent $10k on stud fee, AI, emergency C-section, and resulting infection cost alone. Her bitch gave her one single puppy. She usually charged $2k per puppy. Do you see the problem here?

Additionally there’s this weird like... stigma about making money breeding animals. Listen, yes, capitalism ruins everything, and the focus should be on the animals and not the amount of zeros in your bank account... but at the same time, whelping by itself is a lot of work and dogs are a fairly expensive hobby. As a dog trainer, an artist, a programmer... I demand payment and profit for my work. I cannot eat if I only break even. Yet breeders are told that it’s bad to make money off their dogs and that they have to have some other source of income. Why? There’s a line to be balanced here on getting fair payment for the amount of work they’re putting in vs pricing themselves out of the market. 

[euphoriatxt]

txt if they worked at an animal rescue center ♡

yeonjun

he’s in charge of walking the dogs and making sure all the outdoor cats come back by the end of the day

it’s not really a difficult job but it’s not easy either

there’s one dog that likes to gently headbutt every tree he comes across (his name is lorax)

if yeonjun doesn’t slow down and let lorax pat the tree with his head, he will throw a fit and start wailing

the cats usually don’t create any issues for him

it’s just that when they do come back to the center, they don’t go straight to him and just sit wherever

so he ends up having to take 30 minutes to an hour to find all of them

he loves dressing up the animals and matching with them

there’s an outfit for every holiday, color, weather event, sport, etc (the tiny rain jackets are his favorite)

he makes sure to prepare everything for future owners

he once sat down for 5 hours and went through every song on his playlist to find out each one’s favorite song

he has at least two personalized outfits prepared for each of them that he plans to give to their future owners

he gets really attached to them, and will cry when they get adopted

soobin

out of all of the boys, he spends the most time at the center

he’s there the earliest to feed all the animals and give them their proper medications

he spends his breaks comforting them and training others

before leaving he makes sure to check on every single one of them, giving them food, cuddles, or anything else that they would need

he just loves all of the animals so much :(

has a hard time accepting that some animals just aren’t that friendly

he had to learn the hard way when he found an injured skunk

he didn’t even get close enough to help it before it sprayed him, and he ended up running away

he still feels guilty about it, wondering if the skunk ever healed

he brings so many raccoons to the center for no reason?? and the raccoons just let him???

the boys are shocked that he hasn’t met a mean raccoon yet

“one day you’ll meet one that will try to scratch your eyes out.” - taehyun when soobin brought in the 12th raccoon that week

he always releases the raccoons after feeding them and making sure they’re healthy, but they just come back the next day

somehow able to recognize all of them and distinguish them by name

beomgyu

master animal trainer

he is the reason all the dogs and cats know basic commands and are potty trained already

has even trained some of soobin’s raccoons

absolutely fearless when it comes to helping the more “dangerous” animals

prioritizes the animal’s safety over his own :’)

literally gags when it’s his turn to clean the cages

he can’t last thirty minutes without nose plugs

he loves all the animals, but there’s this one cat that he has beef with

“this is the fifth time she’s put trash in her cage on my day, i know she’s doing this on purpose”

she refuses to be touched by him so they just end up getting into the most intense stare downs

teaches stray dogs how to swim uwu

clowns soobin about how the dogs swim better than him

it’s not often that they find abandoned birds, but when they do beomgyu gets so excited

especially when they’re able to talk

that bird will be able to call the other boys stupid by the end of the week, guaranteed

taehyun

he mostly works outside, overwatching playtime and keeping track of which cats leave

is actually really scared of soobin’s raccoons and how they multiply every time they come back

he tries to stay as far away from them as possible but for some reason they all really like him

he literally has a trail of raccoons following him wherever he goes

“i don’t understand why they like you more, i even built them a little house :( “ - soobin after a raccoon jumped out of his arms to follow taehyun

as much as he’s scared of them, he’s too nice to shoo them away so he tries to outrun them instead (it doesn’t work)

he went through a baking phase so he knows 20+ recipes for animal-safe gourmet treats

has managed to turn it into a side business

there’s a variety of meals/treats he offers that can be categorized by animal, specific allergy, illness, and diet

i guess you can call him an animal nutritionist?

even went as far as making a wedding cake for someone’s dog wedding

hueningkai

now if you thought yeonjun was attached??

this boy lives and breathes with the puppies

there is at least one puppy with him at all times

the puppies are just as attached as he is, it’s a bit concerning

he has full-on conversations with them and cuddle sessions that could go on for hours

he is basically their emotional support human

when he first started working at the center he would give cats catnip after their meals as a “treat” without knowing it would make them high

soobin literally screamed when he saw all the kittens rolling around on the floor

the poor boy had no idea until soobin yelled at him and gave him a lecture

he takes a selfie with every single animal they bring to the center and adds it to their wall of memories

every picture is marked with the animal’s name and the day they were brought in

he gets really emotional if he looks at the wall for too long and starts crying

he really is the purest baby

[aestheticvoyage2021]

Day 313: Tuesday November 9, 2021 - “Morning Routine”

Mama has her nighttime bedtime routine down pat, and William and I are putting together our little morning routine...especially now that we’re officially back on MTN time and only 2 hours back of east coast which means I get an extra hour  every morning!   

It starts in the morning when mama says those words that equate to an alarm clock tone - “you think you can take him” - the legs swing over, careful not to step on Havarti, find the pants and flip flops I left strategically close by, use the restroom and rub my eyes, check my watch, and then act like all is great when I lean over the bassinet to find a wide eyed smiling boy ready to go get after it with me.

We start in the nursery rocking slow, as I still shake away my dreams and as I fully come to reality William lets me know its time to get out of his sleep suit.  We slowly go one limb at a time, letting him stretch and enjoy being free.  I rub his warm tummy and his warm back before finally fully peeling him out.  Then we do some potty time and fresh diaper, pick out the outfit of the morning and by now the smiles are flowing freely - I tell him what day it is, and what we’ve got going on.  Today I told him I had to go pick up dog poop before the trash truck comes! And that I had a meeting at 8!

Now dressed, we visit my office to turn on my computer.  In the mornings, William is especially observant, quietly looking at everything.  But when we go to my office space, its especially true.  He doesn’t sped much time in this room, so his eyes get real big when we sit in my chair and get all my screens turned on and ready at my desk.  He especially likes the picture of me and him that hangs there from his first full day here with us.  I like that picture too, I tell him.  All logged in, we then go out to the living room and make sure to let dogs out together and make our rounds checking on the yard.  Once all is clear, I prop him up in the couch crack while I get the coffee going.  Recently he has started to sit real well on his own and I think its because he’s spent so much time sitting in the crack... the unexpected sweet spot thats become his place if not in the swing or playstation - William’s crack.  I set the boppy around him as if it were his desk, and lay out all his toys around him so that he can have a preference.  He quietly works through them as if it were his inbox, as if the peek-aboo forest were the gems waiting on him to start his day.  Yep - its still the moose behind that spruce.   What a wonderfully good book.

And then at some point, the sad moment where I have to return the favor to Audrie as if the call and response that started with “you think you can take him?” ends with “its time for me to go to work” like clockwork. And baby boy is handed back to mama in bed, where now she rubs the dreams out of her eyes, checks her watch, and gets ready to start her day with him.  

What Ive learned most during these first 5 months as a parent is that routine and consistency is the key to smooth runnings.  I watch it with Mama as she vibes through her day as if on a script showing off his sleep and feeding patterns, and how the lyrics to the song she sings every single night anchor the steps that tell William its time for long sleep.  I try to replicate that with my mornings with him in hopes taht the repition signals to him “its going to be a good day” and “you can count on us” - its really something to be grateful for that we can both be here right now, and that I can drop in on him throughout the day, and be there as soon as I am done with work.  All his needs met; and ours too.

Song: Sally Holland - What A Wonderful World

Quote: “Speak to your children as if they are the wisest, kindest, most beautiful and magical humans on earth, for what they believe is what they will become.” — Brooke Hampton

[smol-and-grumpy]

Sky Full Of Stars - CH03

Sequel to Something Just Like This

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader

Summary: He’s Dean Winchester, ex mobster boss, still a little cocky, less ruthless and not at all short tempered anymore. Instead, he thinks he’s hilarious (she doesn’t agree, though). They both try to live a quiet life. And Dean hopes, very hard, that his former life won’t come knocking at their door.

Warnings: NSFW, fluff, angst

WC: 2708

SERIES MASTERLIST

The bump is getting bigger every day and it’s annoying really. It’s always in the way, it’s everywhere she goes. 

Yesterday Y/N was sobbing because she couldn’t tie her own shoes and when she looked down on herself, all she saw was the tip of her big toes. 

She can’t really cuddle with Dean anymore either. Like she said, the bump really is in the way but it’s also good isn’t it? It means the little baby is growing to be healthy and strong. And oh god, Dean so big and she’s not and the baby has to come out of her vagina, and oh no. It’s not possible. She’ll tear everything down there. Nope, she’s not going to do it. Not going to give birth. Not now, not ever. She said what she said.

They’re in bed when these thoughts hit her and Dean spoons her from behind, telling her a story about something she didn’t really focus on listening to in the first place. Sorry, but she just can’t. There’s a living creature coming out of her in two months time and it’s not going to happen. Not when she has a say in this.

Dean can feel her tensing because he stops babbling, rubs his palm over her bare stomach and kisses her shoulder. ���You okay?”

She sighs before she searches for words to answer him. How can she say that she’s not o-fucking-kay without him worrying? Because she doesn’t want that. She doesn’t want for him to worry. It’s her own anxiety induced thoughts and only she can deal with it. He doesn’t need to worry about her, really.

“I’m terrified,” She says anyway, because it’s the truth and she promised to herself that she’s not going to lie to him. Not anymore.

“Baby,” Dean whispers, his hand still strokes her big bump, and he noses at the back of her ear. “I am too.”

“You don’t have to push the baby out of your pussy, though.”

Dean chuckles lightly, his breath makes the hair on the back of her neck stand up. “No, I don’t. That’s true. But I’d do it for you if I could.”

“Liar,” It’s her turn to laugh, “You almost fainted when my stomach hurt from food and you were running around like a headless chicken because you thought that I had contractions.”

“Oh, come on, that’s totally different.” He’s louder now.

“Or when you made me squirt and you thought you broke my water.”

Dean lifts himself up on his elbow and she has to tilt her head back to laugh at him. He frowns, “That was last night and it was scary alright?”

“Of course,” Her hand goes up to pat his cheek.

“And I meant what I said. No sex until the baby’s out.”

She turns on her back, looks at him and pouts.

“Oh, don’t do that.” Dean sighs, his fingers brush along her face, paints along her brows, the bridge of her nose. 

“Do what?” She asks innocently. Of course she knows what he means.

“Your fucking pout, I swear,” He kisses her then, soft and tender but she wants more, so much more.

Her arms wrap around his neck, pulling him closer and it isn’t long before he gives in. He always does. Dean could never resist her pout. It’s not going to be long until a small person will look at him with their big eyes and pout at him too and she is sure as soon as the child finds out Dean’s weak spot, it will use it against him like she does. 

It still builds up so quick between them and it gets her so hot when he slides his tongue into her mouth, fills it with the taste of him. 

Dean breaks the kiss and it gives her room to breathe. “Baby, Cas and Anna are coming around in a couple of hours. We need to get things ready,”

He kisses her again, though, can’t really stop either. 

“I know, we make it quick, please?”

His hand goes from her bump to her tits, kneads at them, his fingers twirls around her nipple. They’re even more sensitive now, and a little fuller, too.

She’s still naked from last night so he takes the opportunity, dips his head lower, sucks and licks at her throat, working his way down to her nipples and sucks them in, lets them out with a lewd pop right after. Her hand fists in his hair, scratches at his scalp.

He comes up again, looks at her with blown pupils, curses before he says, “Okay, but quick.”

Her smile widens, a smile of a winner, really. She turns around and lets him spoon her. There’s not a lot of positions anymore that she feels comfortable in. At least Dean has gotten over his thing about always wanting to see her face when they have sex. Maybe it’s only for the time being as they don’t have many positions to choose from. 

Dean pulls her closer, and she presses her ass against his hard cock, making him groan into her back at the friction she gives him.

Stroking his cock, Dean threads the mushroom head through her slick and she parts her thighs a little to give him better access. 

He’s still a tease though, rubs the head of his cock along her slit, not quite putting it in yet.

“Dean,” She chokes out his name.

“What do you want, baby?”

“You’re a tease,” She bites down on her bottom lip and flinches because he almost lost his cool there and slipped in a little. The tip of his dick is now inside but only the tip.

Dean groans a little himself, and grits his teeth, “I want you to tell me,” 

“Oh my god, I want your cock Dean, want it inside of me, plea—”

The word gets stuck in her throat when he pushes himself inside, making her moan out loud.

He moves, slow and steady, his arms come up to knead at her tits, fingers twisting her nipple, his mouth on her throat. “Still so fucking tight, baby,” 

She wants more, wants him to fuck her deep but she knows that he won’t go as deep as she wants him to because he’s too scared to hurt her, scared of hurting the baby.

His mouth is right by her ear as he whispers dirty, “Just fucked you last night, fingered you, made you fucking squirt but you’re still so goddamn tight.” 

Y/N loves it when he runs his potty mouth while they fuck, had always loved it. He always says things that make her blush.

Dean’s hand leaves her tits, strokes down her body, rubs along her bump, his hand touches her more gently around her middle. He goes further down, slips his hand between her thighs to rub at her clit, and she doesn’t know how he does it because it’s always better than when she does it herself. 

“You’re close,” He whispers and sucks at her pulse point on her throat, “I can feel you squeezing my cock,”

He’s right. Of course he’s right. She’s so fucking close because he’s brings her there, with his throbbing cock and magic fingers.

“Come, I’m right behind you.” He whispers, low and dirty and it sends shivers down her spine when he flickers at her clit one last time, pushing her off the edge, making her cramp down on his cock, making him spill inside of her. 

“So good,” He’s still half groaning next to her ear, “Always such a good girl for me,”

Her pussy flutters with the praise, as Dean still lazily fucks into her and sprays kisses along her shoulder and throat.

They lie there a while longer, his hand is up and massages at her bump again. The baby is awake, kicks at Dean’s hand and he has to laugh at that.

“You feeling better?” He asks, noses along her temple.

“Much,” She says, placing her hand on his.

“What do you think it’s going to be?” 

She thinks, long and hard. They still don’t know the sex of the baby, last time it didn’t want to show on the ultrasound and she doesn’t even know if she wants to know at all.

“Well, I hope it’s going to be a tiny human.”

Dean has to laugh at that, the sound loud and beautiful in her ear. 

“I hope it has your smile.” He says when he calms down.

“I hope it has your freckles, your eyes and your patience.”

“My humor,” Dean adds and she snorts at that.

He kisses her cheek, “Come on, we should shower and get moving.”

“I need your help,” She says and grunts as he peels himself from her back, slips his soft dick out of her with a squelching sound and she hates how she misses him already.

“With what?” He gets out of the bed, walks over to her side and helps her up, scoops her up and carries her to the bathroom. 

“I need to shave my legs and my pussy,”

Dean groans, he absolutely doesn’t like to help her shave her pussy and she knows that because he can barely keep himself from touching and fucking her while doing it. 

“You’re going to be testing my patience, baby.” He says, and gets into the shower, waits for her to join him.

 *

 Y/N helps Dean prepare for the BBQ and they finish with the preparation even before the Novaks arrive so she decides to lie down a litte, while Dean sets up the table on their terrace.

She lies with her head on the headrest of the couch, right by the door out to the terrace and Dean has to walk past her every time. She lifts her dress, bunches it up right underneath her boobs to watch the baby move. 

It’s so active now, it feels weird and it looks even weirder. She can see it tossing and turning around in her belly. 

When Dean comes in and picks something up in the kitchen, she calls out for him. “Dean, look!”

He stops dead in his tracks, looks at her belly. 

The baby is carving something along her skin, and it wriggles so hard that her belly looks unshaped and bulky. 

Dean stands there, watching, she sees him upside down when she looks up. “Have you ever seen Alien?” He asks out of the blue and walks to her, kneels down and kisses the bump. She has to swat at his arm for that stupid comment, though. 

Then, everything stops. The movement gets more smooth, it doesn’t trash around anymore.

“See, I calmed it down with a kiss, ha!” Dean smiles from ear to ear and she has to roll her eyes because now he’s gonna be incredibly cocky for the rest of the day. 

  Cas and Anna arrive with baby Elijah and the two women plus Cas are sitting and talking to each other.

After Dean had placed the things on the BBQ, he joins them too and Anna asks him if he wants to hold Elijah.

Elijah is six months old, a strong robust baby but still, Dean is reserved. “I dunno, what if I drop him?”

Anna chuckles, “It’s not hard Dean, you can’t break him.”

Y/N nudges at his arm. “Yeah, hold him.”

“Okay, okay, come on, what do I have to do?” He asks but Anna just pushed Elijah into his arms. 

It’s weird. Weird holding a baby that’s not Sam. Dean’s sweating bullets but won’t admit it. He breathes relief when he has an excuse to go turn the steaks and veggies over on the grill.

Cas comes to stands at the grill with Dean. Both of them sipping on their beers. 

“How are you?” Dean asks his friend. 

“Tired,” Cas sighs, “But it’s good. Anna still does most of the work but I help as best as I can.”

Dean nods at that, “You’re doing great, Cas. Anna looks happy, Elijah is healthy, what more can you wish for, right?”

“Yeah,” Cas agrees, “Thanks to you it’s possible for us to spend so much time with Elijah, though. So, thanks. We owe you a lot, if not everything.”

“Ah, stop it, Cas. You earned it. It has nothing to do with me.”

Cas takes a sip from his beer, “How are you?”

Dean takes his time to answer that, he looks back at Y/N, sees her holding Elijah on her lap while Anna gives her tips. 

Dean smiles, “I’m good. We’re good, Cas.”

It’s the first time that he uses these words when he’s feeling exactly that, either. 

“Good,” Cas says and there’s a exhale of breath before Cas speaks again, “Then I guess it’s not the right time to tell you that Crowley tries to get a deal with the FBI.”

“He what?” Dean gets loud and his eyes immediately shoots to the two women, is fucking thankful that they didn’t hear his outburst. 

Cas talks in a low voice now, “Gabe’s still working freelance and he overheard someone saying that Crowley is working on getting out. Don’t worry, it won’t happen today or tomorrow, maybe not even this year or the next, but he’s doing everything to get out.”

“You think he’ll hand us out on a silver platter?”

“Nah,” Cas shakes his head. “He has more skeletons in the closet than we do. He would only hurt himself because I don’t even think they know the full extent of his business. They caught him for corruption and abuse of power, little involvement in the coup that wasn’t — thanks to Y/N — but they don’t know what else there is, they can’t and won’t find anything unless one of us talks.”

“Can you talk to Gabe again? Let him set up a security company. Employ the best of people, war veterans like he and I are. Get 24/7 protection on all of us, including Sam and Ash. But not the obvious kind, protection you can’t really see, you understand?”

Cas raises an eyebrow, “So, you want ninjas?”

“Of course I want ninjas Cas. What else would I want?” Dean snarls, but then Cas chuckles and Dean has to drop his facade.

“I’ll let Gabe know, I don’t think he can get ninjas, though.”

“Good people, is all I ask for, really. There might be some from our old unit who would be interested since it’s legal, he should contact them. And he should let me know how much he needs and I’ll wire it over.”

Cas nods, “You still have your firearms?”

“Yeah, and you?”

“Me too, Anna hates it, though.”

“I don’t think that you’re the one he’s after if he gets out, Cas. So don’t worry about that, alright? I don’t want you to.”

“I’m worried about you.” Cas says and then adds, “No, actually, I’m not even worried about you, I’m worried about Y/N.”

“Yeah, me too.” Dean agrees, he looks to Y/N, sees her frowning at him. She probably knows that something’s not right. That something’s up in the air but Dean won’t tell, refuses to tell her that Crowley is trying to get out and the first person on his list might be her. 

It’s never going to be her, not if Dean can prevent it.

So Dean does what he can do best, and that is pretending that everything’s okay as he piles a plate with grilled veggies and steak and walks over to the girls. They eat and talk. Dean laughs when Cas and Anna tell them stories about funny little things that happened since Elijah’s birth. He rubs his hand on Y/N’s thigh every now and then, squeezes her, and she leans against him, tilts her head to his so he can kiss her. It’s good. Really good. He also watches Y/N smile at Elijah, sees her love for a child that’s not even hers. He loves that, he thinks. He loves her, loves his unborn child, and he’s keeping her, keeping them, would easily and readily give up his own life to save theirs.

CH04

[puppyexpressions]

TIPS FOR A DOG-FRIENDLY LABOR DAY WEEKEND

The first Monday in September brings us Labor Day, the final days of summer, and the start of the back-to-school season for many of us.

In many ways, Labor Day can feel like “the last hoorah!”

Labor Day weekend is a busy time for veterinary hospitals. With all the fun you’ll be having it’s important to remember the dangers that come with extreme heat and overly-stimulating holiday festivities this time of the year.

Pet Safety for Labor Day Parties

Are you hosting or attending a party on Labor Day? If so, there are many potential dangers at a party that can bring harm to your pet. Be sure to keep these tips in mind to avoid endangering your pet.

1. Exercise  

Whether it be a long walk or extra playtime with their favorite toys during the day, your pets are more likely to be tired, peaceful, and calmer at night. While outside, make sure you take your dog to the restroom several times before the party starts, as well. You wouldn’t want to be forced to stop the festivities for an unexpected potty break!

2. Update Tag and Microchip(s)

If your pet manages to break loose and become lost,  it will be that much harder to get them back without proper identification. Make sure their tag is fully visible at all times. Fifteen percent of pet owners lost a pet in the last five years, a heartbreaking and often avoidable statistic. A microchip can mean the difference between a joyous reunion and a post-labor day search party

3. Monitor the Grill

Keep dogs away from hot grills, tempting trash, and flammable items.

Labor Day brings about interesting smells and new foods that can tempt even the most well-behaved dogs. When it comes to human foods, pet parents should avoid feeding their pets from the table. However, never feed pets at the grill. In addition to stomach and digestive problems caused by greasy and carb-heavy human foods, your dog could potentially burn themselves on hot grill plates or burning coals.

4. Keep them Cool

Although the end of summer is near, the sun is shining bright and is still hot, hot, hot! Dogs like being outside, but intense heat can cause heatstroke and exhaustion. If you and your dog go outside for an adventure, or there is a party being hosted outdoors; be sure your fur baby has access to plenty of cool drinking water. Placing a cold, damp cloth on your pet’s stomach may also help them beat the heat.

5. Beware of Fireworks

Excitable dogs may try to attack, eat, or play with fireworks and firecrackers that may appear on Labor Day. Unfortunately, dogs and fireworks don’t mix well. Fireworks can cause deadly injuries like severe burns, trauma, and even chemical poisoning.

Used fireworks should be watered down and stored away from the house or any flammable materials after the festivities end. This will allow them to cool down properly, preventing fires or unforeseen injuries to your dog(s).

6. Watch for Flammable Items

Keep all flammable items away from pets. This includes everything from glow sticks and fireworks to matches and lighter fluid. Certain types of matches contain chlorates, which could cause difficulty breathing or even kidney disease in severe cases. Lighter fluid can be irritating to skin and can produce gastrointestinal irritation and central nervous system depression if ingested.

7. Ask For Help

Ask for help! Your party guests can help keep track of your pet throughout the night. Ask a few trusted friends to take turns watching your fur baby. This way, everyone is bound to have fun, and your dog gets to socialize. We’ll volunteer if you can’t convince your friends.

6 Fun Ways to Celebrate Labor Day with Your Dog

No plans for the long weekend?

If you have any fur babies at home, another way to celebrate the day off is by planning an activity with your best friend. We’re here to help make the most of your Labor Day weekend with spent with you, yourself, and your mutt.

1. Beach Day

Most dogs love to swim, and there’s no better place to do it then at a beach, lake, or shore. Playing frisbee, boating, and swimming are just a few ways to enjoy the beach (or any body of water!) with your dog.

2. Camping

Most dogs love camping and will be quick to adapt to #tentlife. Camping is more fun with a dog. They have so much to do, see and smell! Try spending a long weekend with your dog and your family amid the beauty of Mother Nature.

3. Dog-Friendly Hiking Trails

Hiking can open up a whole new world of fascinating adventure. Dogs make great companions in the wilderness.

Treat yourself and your pup by discovering a new hiking trail!

Hiking can be a fun, but strenuous activity for both you and your pet. As a responsible, adventurous pet parent, it’s important to be prepared on a hike with your dog.

4. Visit a Dog-Friendly Bar or Resort

Imagine…Your dog’s very own luxurious bed, fancy food and water bowls, room service menu, dog treats, in-room massages, and maybe even a “Yappy Hour” or two (alcoholic beverages for pet parents, only!)  at a dog-friendly resort? If a resort doesn’t seem feasible this year, you can also try out a local dog-friendly bar.

5. Visit the Dog Park

When’s the last time you took your dog to a dog park?

Most pups love off-leash time with canine friends.

To find the right dog park for you and Fido, check with friends, neighbors, and online to see where the dog parks are in your area. Do your due diligence and check out the dog park before you let your dog run loose inside.

6. Just Relax

Sometimes the best way to celebrate a holiday is to do nothing at all. Ah, a long lazy weekend with no schedules, no alarm clocks, no work, no projects, no errands, no ringing phones, no buzzing email alerts, no pressing errands. So why not just relax, recharge your battery, and don’t forget to reach over and pet your faithful companion during commercial break.

[alison-anonymous]

flawsome bandits pt. 1 ♡ sonic

Flawsome First Meetings

EARLY RELEASE!

Hello, my darlings and WELCOME to my second multi-part fanfic, Flawsome Bandits (a Sonic the Hedgehog Movie! x Reader). I have not yet finished the second chapter of this story yet, and I’m currently trying to prewrite these chapters so I can update them along the way, but I wanted to get the first one out to all of my patient darlings as soon as possible! Please let me know what you think, the love always encourages me to write more ;) Love you all, please enjoy!

Warnings: none

♡♡♡

If you've ever had amnesia, you'd know that things seem very quick.

Little flashbacks of what you're guessing to be your backstory come back in little spurts that never last long enough and are gone too soon. They leave huge, gaping holes in your background information from what your favorite color is to who your parents were. Try your story on for size.

You were Y/n Wachowski. A sassy, quick-witted teenage girl with a love for speed and a sharp tongue. Parents? Unknown. Distant relatives? Undiscovered. Hometown? Who the fuck knows. You were sent to live with the Wachowski's as your permanent foster parents after you were discovered wandering around the woods by a couple of hikers. They said that they found you wearing a ripped and dirty jumpsuit with pastel colors that looked like it was ten times smaller than your size. When they had tried to confront you, it was almost as if you couldn't hear them, your mouth open and unspeaking. Eyes wandering, glossy and unseeing. 

You couldn't remember much about your past. Most of the time it was like looking at a blank sheet of paper, ready to get into the printer but it's out of ink. After being diagnosed with a concussion and severe amnesia, you were seen as unfit to take care of yourself, so that was how you ended up with the Wachowskis. But just because you were lucky enough to have loving and patient foster parents didn't mean that you had an answer to every question they asked. You had no idea what your favorite color was, what you liked to do in your free time, or even if you were a night owl. 

It was like you didn't even remember who you were. Like you had just been born, only you weren't a baby and were instead a teenager. It got incredibly lonely being a child with no memories, and the kids at school found you very creepy. But it was okay. Tom and Maddie made sure to give you as much love as was humanly possible, and when the bullying at school got to the point where they would follow you home, they switched you to homeschooling. 

It appeared that you not only had no existing memories of your past, but you also had barely any idea how things on earth worked. Whenever someone mentioned examinations, vaccines, bucket lists, and even governmental agencies, you had no clue what they were talking about. 

Not everyone was as patient as Tom and Maddie were, unfortunately. Most people would assume that you were kidding when you asked them what a protractor was or why people ride animals. It all seemed so strange and new to you, like Tarzan when he was visiting the human world and not the ape land he was familiar with. But out of it all, there was one thing that you became absolutely fascinated with. 

Cars. 

The faster, the better. You seemed to have an unchecked need for speed that tickled at your mind every time you got behind the wheel. Whenever Tom allowed it, you'd take the truck or his old squad motorcycle out for a spin in the abandoned corn fields where you could do as many tricks as you wanted without putting anyone else in danger. One of your favorites was driving backwards. 

It's during one of those days where our story finally begins. The Montana sun was high up in the sky, beating down its scorching rays onto the untouched pavement. A flock of birds fled for the telephone polls in an attempt to escape from the ever increasing sound of revving coming from the abandoned corn field near Crazy Carl's traps for the supposed "Blue Devil." In the midst of the dead and crusty corn stalks, there sat a young girl on a very old squad motorcycle. Her hair fluttered gently in the slight breeze running through the air, a pair of sunglasses perched delicately atop her nose in the absence of a helmet. Before her stood a makeshift riser composed of some old wooden slabs she had "borrowed" from an old tree house a little ways south. A smirk played across her lips as she kicked up the bike's kickstand and revved the engine. 

"Alright, Y/n, if you make this jump, you'll be the most famous girl in Green Hills…" Her words got lost in the wind as she took a deep breath and began to ride towards the jump, her speed increasing with every passing second. The distance began to decrease, her growing closer and closer until an abnormal electric blue blur zipped past her. Startled, she swerved, momentarily losing control of her bike as she slowed to a stop, planting her boots firmly on the ground. Chest heaving, she flipped her sunglasses up onto her forehead and slipped off of the bike, looking around the empty field to see if she hit anything. 

What was that? She wondered. 

Unbeknownst to her, a couple feet away from her, hidden deep within some dehydrated bushes was a royal blue hedgehog. He had been on his way back to his cave after taking a turtle for a little joy ride down the interstate when he spotted his favorite human on earth, Star Chaser. She was the most amazing girl he had ever seen, and lived with Donut Lord and Pretzel Lady. He would make it a priority to hang out with her every time she was out practicing her racing tricks, a dopey grin spreading on his face every time he saw her ecstatic smile. She just never knew he was there. 

More than anything, he wished that he could get to hang out with her just once. Just for one day, spent full of speeding down the empty country roads and flying over makeshift jumps and laughing about the funny faces they made from the wind hitting their skin. But he knew better. He had to stay hidden, just like Longclaw said. Never stop running, and always stay hidden… alone. 

There was something about her that just drew him to her, something familiar. He watched with caution as Star Chaser searched the field a bit more, her footfalls making satisfying crunching sounds on the long gone plants. Her beautiful e/c eyes searched the grounds before her for whatever had interrupted her practice. Finally, after she was satisfied with not having hit anything, she got back onto the cycle, flipped her sunglasses back on, and zipped away, leaving a trail of smoky exhaust in her wake.

The blue hedgehog zoomed back to his cave himself, dodging trees and bushes with expertise. The whole time he ran, he couldn't prevent his mind from wondering what life might be like if he were somehow able to live alongside the humans. If he could have a conversation with Star Chaser that didn't exist in his imagination, to maybe even discover why she seemed so familiar. What would life be like if he didn't have to hide? 

♡♡♡

Just when things finally start getting familiar, the concept of moving decides to rear its ugly head in. Y/n had found out that her foster dad got a promotion, a job in another city with a higher ranking and a wider variety of donut holes to snack on. That meant that they were going to have to leave Green Hills. 

But, knowing her, she shoved the grief and frustration so far down inside her until it became nonexistent. Maddie had left on a trip to see her sister, leaving Y/n and Tom alone. They had had a freak power outage the night before, leaving Tom a bit on edge. His phone kept ringing off the hook as his coworker was just a bit dependent on him, and had no idea if he should just ignore the 911 phone calls or pick them up. 

“Remind me to drive by the library tomorrow,” Y/n set down her latest novel on the counter by the car keys. She watched as Tom stole a bit of frosting off of the cake and scrunched up her nose at the lack of sanitation. “I need to return this before we get fined.” 

Tom nodded just as his phone began ringing. He held up a finger to his daughter and leaned against the counter, lifting up the phone to his ear as he began to talk to his wife. Y/n turned to the fridge and was trying to decide whether or not she was hungry or just bored as she did her best to not listen to them talking about the move. Just as she was about to reach for the watermelon, a loud clattering noise came from outside. Tom and Y/n exchanged an alarmed glance and quickly shuffled over to the window, childishly trying to shove each other out of the way so they could get a good look. 

“Shit,” Y/n swore as she took in the knocked over trash bins sitting next to the garage.

“Watch your potty mouth,” Tom scolded, but a smile still stayed on his lips. “The racoons are back.” Y/n watched as he quickly turned towards one of the junk drawers and pulled out Maddie’s bear tranquilizer gun. She snorted. 

“You better not be using my tranquilizer gun,” she heard Maddie’s voice say over the speaker. “That’s for bears.”

“Good,” Tom grinned as he loaded up the machine. “Now I know it’ll work. Y/n, stay inside.” Y/n scoffed as he hung up the phone and opened up the back door. Yes, of course she was going to stay safely inside like a crappy sidekick and miss the potential action of scaring trash pandas half to death. Grabbing an extra flashlight, she raced out after her dad to see him pressed up against the side of the shed, holding the gun and flashlight near his face. He jumped once she saddled up next to him, putting her flashlight in front of her like her own makeshift gun.

“I thought I told you to stay inside,” He narrowed his brows. To his dismay, Y/n only shrugged.

“You did. I didn’t listen,” she grinned, making it obvious that he had no other choice than to let her stay. He sighed, but nevertheless nodded. On a quick countdown from three, the two burst into the shed, waving their flashlights around like mad men.

“Green Hills PD, put your paws up!” Tom hollered. Y/n slowly made her way out from behind him, flashing her light around the empty room until it finally came to a stop. Her eyes widened in shock and her jaw nearly dropped to the floor as she tried to make sense of what exactly she was looking at. An electric blue creature wearing white gloves and tennis shoes stood before them, holding what looked like a gold wedding ring between his forefinger and thumb. She couldn’t tell what was stranger: the fact that he existed or the fact that he seemed oddly familiar. The creature’s green eyes flashed from hers to her father’s before he let out a small, nervous chuckle. 

“Uhh, meow?” 

And then, Tom screamed. His fear and the sudden introduction of the loud noise caused Y/n to scream, too, which finally led to the little blue creature screaming. But the longer Y/n stared at it, the more she began to experience a slight hint of deja vu. She couldn’t seem to shake the feeling that she had seen this thing before. 

“Wait,” she whispered, barely loud enough for her dad to hear, but the blue creature’s ears perked up. He turned his attention back to her and the second they locked eyes, the same sense of familiarity began coursing through his veins. After all of those days spent watching her from afar, how did he never notice the e/c eyes? Where had he seen them before?

Unfortunately, Tom just had to go and ruin the moment by pulling the trigger on the tranq gun. 

“Dad, no!” Y/n cried, but it was already too late as the dart sank into the blue creature’s thigh. They could only watch as the animal looked down at the needle in his leg and slowly looked back up with a hurt glare.

“Ow,” he whined, his eyes already beginning to lose their concentration. Y/n was about to take a step towards the creature, but Tom wrapped his hand around her arm to stop her. The creature’s eyes floated over Tom’s shirt, zeroing in on the words that littered the old fabric. “San… Fran…sisco?” He muttered. The ring he had been holding on to loosely slipped from his fingers, and began rolling across the floor. As its velocity increased, it began expanding, deying all laws of logic as a portal overlooking the given city appeared. Y/n and Tom’s jaws dropped to the floor as they watched the creature stumble, dropping his little bag through the portal and collapsing onto the ground. Y/n’s heart ached for the poor thing as she fought to get out of her father’s grasp in order to help him. 

Within seconds, the portal closed up, eliminating the slight wind that had appeared. “N-No…” The creature whimpered before finally passing out. A thick silence crossed over the three as Tom’s grip on Y/n’s arm loosened, both humans trying to figure out what the heck they just witnessed. 

“What the actual fuck?” Y/n breathed. 

“Language…” 

♡♡♡

“Yes. Let’s shoot the poor thing and then put him in a cage,” Y/n rolled her eyes sarcastically, watching as her father poked the blue creature resting inside of their dog’s old cage. She batted at his hand, and gave him a death glare, but he just sighed. 

“Come on, kid, what if he’s an alien?” Tom asked incredulously, turning back to the sleeping creature. He nudged its head with a metal spatula and sighed. 

“I don’t know…” Y/n sighed, resting her head on her knuckle. I mean, she had to admit he was kind of… cute. The nostalgia that he was causing was just an added complication. There was something about his entire being that seemed eerily familiar to her, but she couldn’t for the life of her figure out why. Tom slowly withdrew something that had fallen onto the padding; an electric blue quill. The two slowly leaned closer to inspect the object, noting the little blue bolts of electricity that whizzed across its surface. It absolutely fascinated Y/n, while Tom seemed a little more apprehensive. He turned away from the cage and set it down on the counter, running a hand over his face. 

“This is nuts,” he whispered. Y/n took the opportunity to get a little closer to the being, scanning his body with careful eyes. She debated reaching through the bars to touch him, but before she had a chance to, his eyes slowly popped open. Her eyes widened and she stayed perfectly still as he pushed himself up to a standing position and made his way to open the cage. Her breath catches in her throat as he finally looks up at her and gives her a small, sheepish smile, stumbling out onto the counter top. Even in the given circumstances, the only thing that the girl can think of is how absolutely adorable he is. 

...wait, what?

“Star Chaser?” Y/n quickly turned her attention back to the present and furrowed her brows in confusion. Who was Star Chaser? “Donut Lord?” The blue being slurred, holding on to the cage for support. Tom swiveled around at the sound and scoffed.

“So the Blue Devil can talk. You’re not here to abduct us are you?” 

“YOU abducted ME,” the Blue Devil replied defensively, pressing his hand against his chest. Y/n rolled her eyes and stepped between the two, looking the being in the eyes. 

“I am very sorry for that-”

“Why are you apologizing to it?!” Tom cried, running his hands through his hair incredulously. Y/n just rolled her eyes. 

“I told him to just leave you alone. But, if I may ask, who are you and why were you in our shed?” She finished. Tom facepalmed behind her while the Blue Devil did his best to concentrate his fatigue on the beautiful girl standing before him. Gosh, her eyes were pretty…

“I-I needed a safe place, and Donut Lord’s house was the only place I could think of, Star Chaser!” 

“Why does he keep calling me Donut Lord?” Tom asked warily, slowly reaching for the tranq gun. Y/n quickly shot him a glare and he let out an annoyed huff. Even though he was her foster father, they acted like siblings with good-hearted and frequent quarrels. 

“Because you talk to donuts,” the Blue Devil explained. “And then eat them when they get out of line.” Y/n snorted, trying her best to contain her laughter by pressing the back of her hand to her mouth. She didn’t notice the small smile that formed on the blue hedgehog’s face as Tom shrugged, nodding his head slightly. 

“Fair. Why is she Star Chaser?” The Blue Devil got a distant look on his face, a small, thoughtful smile still lingering on his lips.

“I’ve watched her race out in the fields. It’s amazing how fast she can go. Sometimes I wonder if she’s trying to chase the stars out of the sky…” A soft smile slowly formed on your lips at his words. No one had ever talked about you like that before. 

The distant look on his face was suddenly replaced by one with worry. His eyes began frantically glancing around the room, Y/n being able to practically see the alarms going off in his head. “Wait, where are my… Why am I still on earth? Oh no, I lost my rings!” 

“Rings?” Y/n furrowed her brows in confusion. Just then, a loud rumbling sound came from outside. It had such an impact that it shook the entire house, startling the chimes that Maddie had hung up above the sink. The three looked around in confusion.

“What’s happening? Is this your mothership?” Tom began panicking, walking briskly around the table towards the window. He jabbed an accusing finger at the nervous hedgehog. “I do NOT want my daughter getting probed.”

“Dad, stop,” Y/n sighed, following him towards the window. “You’re the one who abducted him. Can’t you be just a little bit sentimental?”

“Thanks,” the hedgehog muttered just loud enough for Y/n to hear. She stood next to her foster dad at the window and peered out the glass. A giant grey vehicle that had been passing stopped and began backing up towards their driveway.

“What the hell kind of make is that?” Y/n muttered. The Blue Devil was by their side in a second and was peering through the window too. Once he caught sight of the ginormous lab van, he let out a squeak and pulled the white curtains shut.

“They’re after me!”

“Who’s after you?” Y/n questioned in concern. She got pushed behind Tom as he stood protectively in front of her, eyeing the Blue Devil suspiciously.

“And what does that have to do with us?” 

“I don’t have time to explain, but you have to help me!” He pleaded. Y/n felt her heart sink for the creature, her instant gut feeling telling her that they had to help him. He was in danger, albeit he was apparently a runaway. Unfortunately, Tom had different ideas as he furiously shook his head.

“No, we don’t!”

“But Dad-”

“Y/n, enough,” Tom ended her protests sternly. He turned back to the blue hedgehog and furrowed his brows, wondering what reason he could possibly have that would need them to help him. “Why should we help you?”

“Well, my legs, which normally would be classified as legal weapons, feel like spaghetti. I need your help, please! It’s life or death.” The Blue Devil’s green eyes pleaded to Tom. Y/n slowly made her way out from behind her dad and glanced down at him. He knew exactly what to say in order to get Tom to help him, didn’t he? It was almost as if he had been there all of those times when Tom was wishing for someone to come to him in their time of need. His facade crumbled and he caved in almost instantly.

“Alright, fine. Y/n, take him up to the attic. I’ll take a look at what’s going on outside.” Tom ordered. Y/n nodded and motioned for the blue hedgehog to follow her. They quickly scampered towards the stairs, and as they began to walk quietly up the flights, Y/n noticed two things. One, Crazy Carl was right after all. The little “Blue Devil” was a lot larger than she had expected him to be, measuring up to be about half of her height. And two, the thing was having a horrific time walking. With a strangely racing heart, Y/n slowed down her pace and offered her hand to the being. He gave her a small smile and accepted it, wrapping his gloved hand around her own. 

“My actual name is Y/n, by the way,” she finally spoke in an attempt to break the hurried silence. “But I like Star Chaser better.” He smiled beside her, trying to figure out why the girl before him seemed so familiar.

“I just thought it suited you. My name’s Sonic. Sonic the Hedgehog.”

“I knew you weren’t an alien,” Y/n said as she let go of his hand to pull down the ladder. She picked the hedgehog up and set him down gently inside the attic. His name kept ringing throughout her head on an endless loop, like it was supposed to bring back some big part of her life, but it always came back empty. She gave him a small smile and was about to head back down when he stopped her.

“Wait,” his dreamy green eyes were full of concern as he looked straight into Y/n’s. “Be careful.” 

Y/n appreciated how genuinely concerned he was for her safety. It was a beautiful gulp of fresh air amidst all of the others who thought she was crazy or weird. At least his sincerity made the fact that he had been basically stalking her and her family for a while now a little bit less creepy. Y/n gave him a reassuring smile and closed the attic door, racing all the way back down to the main floor where she skidded to a halt by the door. 

There was Tom, with some very strange looking man sporting a signature Man with the Bowler Hat mustache standing in the Y/n slowly approached her dad and watched as the man turned his attention towards her.

“Oh, I didn’t realize you had a daughter,” the man smiled creepily, sending shivers down her spine. She scrunched her nose as Tom wrapped his arm around her shoulder protectively.

“I have a name,” she raised her brows skeptically. “Y/n.” 

At the sound of her name, the man got a shocked look on his face, his eyes widening to the size of saucers as he stared intensely at her. Tom and Y/n exchanged confused glances before the man quickly snapped back into reality. 

“Y/n…” he repeated. “Interesting. Anyways, where was I? Oh, yes,” he suddenly propelled himself towards Tom, becoming very uncomfortably close to his face. Y/n slowly sank into her father’s arm in order to back away from the strange man. “I was spitting out formulas while you were still spitting up formula.”

“I was breastfed, actually,” Tom responded, mildly weirded out. Y/n’s face contorted in disgust. What the hell was this conversation?

“Nice,” he nodded. “Rub that in my orphan face.”

“Okay,” Y/n spoke up, finally having enough as she pushed the two apart. “Listen, I have no idea who you are and why you are here, but I think you should be leaving.”

“Ooh, fiesty one,” the man nodded, narrowing his eyebrows at you to the point that the folds on his forehead nearly overlapped one another. “Doctor Robotnik, I-”

A sudden thump sounded from the kitchen, startling the man enough to make him shut up. Tom and Y/n froze, running through every possible excuse in their minds as to what that could have been that wasn’t Sonic. Y/n turned to Robotnik and offered him the best sheepish smile she could muster.

“Um… Racoons?”

Robotnik gave her a fake smile and shouldered his way into the house. Y/n and Tom scrambled to follow him, praying to god that their little blue friend wasn’t sitting on the kitchen counter. Thankfully, once they reached the kitchen, they were greeted with a friendly racoon, shoveling handfuls of celebratory cake into its mouth. Y/n breathed a small sigh of relief through her mouth.

“See? Racoons.” Tom spoke defiantly, placing his hands on his hips. Y/n began to search the room quietly for any sign of Sonic while Robotnik was preparing to leave. They had almost gotten him out the door when he stopped and backtracked. In confusion, Y/n and Tom followed his gaze and their hearts stopped.

He slowly held up the lone electric blue quill for all to see.

“Looks like I was right,” a shit-eating grin formed on his face. “Note the lack of surprise.” He pointed to his monotone expression and Y/n could already tell that she fucking hated him. She slowly began to back away from him when a floating egg shaped orb harnessing a bright red laser became very interested in Tom. Y/n’s heart raced, back growing tense as she began to hesitantly back away until Robotnik gave her a warning glare. 

She wasn’t going anywhere.

“So, let’s try this again. Where. Is. It?”

“Look, man, leave her out of this. We have no idea what ‘it’ is,” Tom exclaimed, beginning to hold his hands up in surrender. Robonik simply shook his head and pushed some buttons on the gloves that he was wearing. 

“I hate liars. You have five seconds to tell me where it is. Five… Four…” He began to count down, Y/n only being able to watch in horror as the white orb came ever closer to her father, the menacing light flashing. Daring someone to challenge it. Tom stared, his facade crumbling with every second that was counted down, trying desperately to find a way out. Things were looking to death when a sudden electric blue blur shot out from behind the counter and stood in front of Y/n, hands outspread in protection.

“Wait!” Sonic cried. “Don’t hurt them!”

Y/n looked down at the little hedgehog in shock, and was startled when Robotnik let out the most girlish scream anyone had ever heard come from the pipes of a man. Then Tom punched him in the face. 

“Yes, go Dad!” Y/n whooped as the Doctor crumpled onto the floor, unconscious. Their victory was short lived, however, as the second she finished talking, she was dragged behind the counter by Sonic to avoid getting hit in the face by a laser beam. The three watched in horror as the Wachowski’s custom designed kitchen became destroyed by the angry red bots, shooting around with no instructions as their master was now taking a nap on the floor. Before Y/n even had the chance to ask what they should do, they noticed that Sonic was already missing. Looking frantically around the room, Tom motioned up to one of the kitchen cupboards, and sure enough, there was Sonic preparing to jump onto one of the bots that was probably scanning for their heat signatures or something equally significant. The two shook their heads rapidly, but Sonic simply gave them one of the most adorable sassy nods Y/n had ever seen. He leapt onto the robot, trying desperately to smack it as it spun around like a horse without a head.

“This-was a… horrible idea!” Sonic screamed before he got flung off the robot, sailing through the air, and landing straight into Y/n’s arms. He offered her a sheepish smile, and Y/n rolled her eyes, a smile still playing across her lips. She set him down just in time to see her dad knock the bot out with a frying pan. It careened to a halt and collapsed onto the ground. 

“Alright,” Y/n nodded, kicking it once with the scuff of her shoe for good measure. “Shall we get out of here?”

“Yes, please.”

♡♡♡

The three runaways were able to pull out of the driveway just as a bunch of other Men in Black vans were pulling up to the house. Tom sat behind the wheel while Sonic sported a shotgun, and Y/n crouched in the middle of the backseat with no seatbelt. Because this was living on the dark side, and on the dark side, we don’t wear seatbelts.

“Okay, so now that we aren’t running from scary doctors, what the hell is going on here?” Y/n asked, leaning forward on the console and resting her head in her hand as she turned to Sonic. He leaned his head back against the seat and sighed.

“Well, I just might have been the reason for that big power explosion… and now people after me. To make things worse, I lost my rings to a place that I’ve only ever seen on your dad’s skin tight T-shirt, and I have to make it to the Mushroom Planet or else I’m putting everyone here in danger.” He finally took in a deep gulp of air after pulling out that whole explanation in one breath. Y/n furrowed her brows in concern.

“Mushroom Planet?” Tom asked, his lips pressing into a firm line. 

“You must have lost them in San Francisco,” Y/n said. Suddenly, Tom jerked the wheel to the right and pulled off to the side of the road, unlocking the doors in the process.

“Alright, get out.” Y/n and Sonic stared at him in confusion.

“I’m sorry, what?” Sonic narrowed his eyes slightly. Tom leaned forwards and opened the passenger side door for him, running a hand down his face.

“Look, this is the worst time for me to be getting into trouble with the law and my daughter doesn’t really need a track record. So, you can go off and have good luck with finding your weird little Mushroom Planet. I’ll hopefully wake up in a hospital room soon with a successful colonoscopy and a happy, totally sane teenage daughter, so goodbye.”

“What? Dad!” Y/n started to object, her blood boiling in irritation at his insensitivity. Sonic shook his head and gave her a half-hearted smile as he slipped out of the car. 

“It’s okay, Y/n. Goodbye, I guess…” But instead of leaving, he just stood there. Staring. Y/n turns to stare at her father too to double the effect. 

“Why aren’t you leaving?” He groaned in frustration.

“How the hell is he supposed to know where San Francisco is?” Y/n laughs, and Tom sighs in defeat, knowing that she’s right. He gives her a half-assed glare, but as usual she was refusing to back down. Sonic doesn’t notice the small smile forming on his own lips, his appreciation for this strangely familiar girl increasing with every second he spent with her.

“It’s West. Straight shot.” Tom finally tells him. Sonic nods.

“Okay. West. Cool. Cool, I’m totally cool with saying goodbye right now,” he exaggerates, swirling his gloved hands around with the hurt clearly evident on his face. 

“I’m not,” Y/n grumbles, pressing her cheek against the rough leather of the driver’s seat. Before anyone could say another word, Sonic shot off in the given direction faster than the speed of sound. Y/n’s jaw drops open along with Tom’s as they look down at the spot where he once was. 

“H-holy shit,” Y/n stuttered. 

“D-did he just-” Tom didn’t even get to finish the sentence before Sonic came back, only this time soaking wet. He was sporting a nice fish on his head and a bunch of seaweed hanging on to his quills, which accented his sarcastic expression perfectly. Y/n tried to stifle her laughter by pouting and turning to her father as he rolled his eyes.

“So, as I crashed into the cold, dark Pacific,” Sonic began, sending a wink in Y/n’s direction. “I noticed a couple things. A, I have no idea where I’m going. B, salt water stings. And C, I shouldn’t even be on this planet right now but I am. Why? Because you shot me.” Sonic’s eyes narrowed.

“I know,” Tom sighed, turning back to the road.

“You shot me!”

“Okay, you don’t need to rub it in,” he sniffed, glancing at Y/n out of the corner of his eye. “She was there too…”

“She didn’t shoot me,” Sonic stood up for her. Y/n gave him a kind smile as he began listing off characteristics on his gloved fingers. “I’m wet, I’m cold, there’s a fish on my head, and clearly I’m not going to be able to do this on my own!” Once he finished, Y/n slowly reached out to him and pushed the fish off his head, watching as it flopped about helplessly on the ground.

“You do owe it to him,” she subtly pressed, leaning back once again in her seat. Tom stayed silent for a moment, staring firmly at the little blue hedgehog for what seemed like forever. Finally he caved and started the ignition once again.

“Fine. Get in.”

“Really?” Sonic and Y/n chimed in hopeful unison. “You’re going to help me?” He shook out his fur at such a high speed that once he finished, it poofed out like a dramaticized afro. Y/n giggled in her seat, not being able to handle how cute it was. Butterflies began to wander around in her stomach.

“I guess it is sort of my fault,” Tom hesitantly admitted. 

“Actually, it’s entirely your fault,” Y/n teased. He gave her a playful shove, but snorted nonetheless. Sonic quickly climbed into the car and slammed the door shut behind him.

“Road trip!” He cheered, looking excitedly around the car. Y/n cheered along with him while still trying to shake the eerily feeling of familiarity. Tom shook his head, squeezing the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white.

“What the hell am I doing with my life?”

♡ a.a.