#you know what that means!! the ghosts are all GABE!!

[watchthekittycatcher]

im really not an rpf kinda person. feels weird most of the time. that being said I have read some fob crack fics for fun before and I gotta wonder what it is about gabe saporta that means he has to be the Magic Dude in every single one

[aziraphales-library]

Hi!!! Do you have any fics where aziraphale is famous and crowley's just a "nobody"? preferably without explicit scenes, please :)) thank you so so much <3<3

Hello! We have a #famous aziraphale tag. Here are some fics in which Aziraphale is famous and Crowley is not. I could only find a couple of non-explicit fics, I'm afraid, but I'm pretty sure the smut is minimal/skippable in most of these...

First Thing In The Morning by FeralTuxedo (E)

Aziraphale Fell, erstwhile nerd, now successful fantasy author, is signing books at this year’s Heaven and Earth convention when he spots a red-headed man in the crowd. Someone he hasn’t quite been able to forget since his school days. And as luck would have it, Anthony Crowley, former troublemaker, now responsible adult, seems keen to reconnect.

Pride Month and Prejudice by TawnyOwl95 (E)

They say that you should never meet your celebrity crush. Especially when you know what an absolute bastard he is. So, of course, Anthony J. Crowley's participation in a queer adaptation of Pride and Prejudice for Pride Month has nothing to do with the involvement of A-lister A.Z. Fell. Crowley is only doing it so he has some gossip for his column. He didn't mean to get cast as Lizzy Bennet, he certainly didn't mean to be acting opposite Fell's Mr Darcy. And to make matters worse, Fell keeps staring at him...

Veni Vino Vegas (I Came, I Got Drunk, I Got Married) by A_N_D (T)

After a whirlwind drunken evening, author Az Fell came home from Rom-Con without his heirloom pinkie ring – but with a wedding license from a 24-hour Las Vegas chapel. Elsewhere, book fan Tony Crowley woke up with a hangover, vague memories, and a brand new ring he’s only seen in author photos. Mutually attracted, mutually terrified the other one thinks it was all a regrettable mistake, they turn to their dear but anonymous online friend to vent and ask for advice. …Maybe they should tell each other their screennames someday.

and now all of my garden is grown in lavender by ilikeblue (E)

Popular queer romance author, A.Z. Fell, has been lying about having a husband and a happy marriage for years. Longing to escape a string of failed relationships and looking for a fresh start, Aziraphale moves into the cottage left to him by his Great Aunt Agnes. When a TV adaptation of one of his books leads to sudden popularity and throws him into the limelight, his fans (and the press) are eager to catch a glimpse of Aziraphale's own mysterious leading man. Unfortunately, he still has to cast someone for that role. Enter the handsome gardener… Under Crowley's meticulous care the cottage's neglected garden slowly comes back to life, and Aziraphale finds himself writing the most important love story he'll ever write: his own

Once upon a time by elf_on_the_shelf (E)

‘Hello, my dear.’ Crowley bit his lip for a couple of seconds before he took a deep breath and just went with it. ‘Would you like to go for a coffee sometime?’ There was silence at the other end. Oh shit. ‘That was my friend messing around with my phone…?’ ‘You do realise that only works over text.’ ‘Myeah.’ Why was he like this? He had wanted to kill Bea for doing the same thing and yet here he was, doing the thing. At Bea’s behest, mind you. ‘I would love to go for coffee. Oh, and cake!’ Aziraphale is a very rich and successful writer. Crowley is at the worst possible moment of his life - living off Bee's couch and posting his mum's fairy tales on some random sites only to be ignored by everyone except one random person simply called A. This is a story about how both of our main protagonists get over the ghosts of their pasts, learn to work together and maybe - just maybe - fall in love in the process. Not to mention that all of the characters that we love (hate - looking at you, Gabe) make an appearance.

The Infernal Bodyguard by Santillatron (M)

Alistair Zira Fell is a popular author. Loved by everyone he meets. Well, almost everyone. Someone is trying to hurt him, and right now, he needs a bodyguard. Anthony J. Crowley is the best, although he doesn't work with celebrities. He has three rules. He never gets too close, never stays once the job is done, and Never Gets Involved. But this isn't a thriller. This, is a love story.

- Mod D

[musings-of-a-rose]

Okay so for Robbie (Ghost Rider) x Reader, I was thinking where the reader was going after the Watchdogs and the reader got hurt in the process where Robbie see her and then they got into a slight argument where it is dangerous to go after the Watchdogs.

So a slight angst but fluff at the end. It’s fine that you don’t want to do this one.

Promise

Pairing: Robbie Reyes x f!reader

Word Count: 800+

Rating: Mature - 18+ ONLY!

Warnings: Just like ao3, “creator chooses not to use warnings.” If you click Keep Reading, that means you agree that you’re the age to handle mature themes. Also by clicking Keep Reading, you understand warnings may not be complete in order to avoid spoilers for the story. 

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**Reader is not described

Main Masterlist

Robbie Reyes Masterlist

Ok, I really fucked up this time. I had gotten some intel that a higher up member of the Watchdogs that I’ve been trying to find for months was meeting a weapons dealer in a warehouse across town. I probably should’ve planned this better, but it was last minute and I couldn’t wait. 

Which may cost me my life.

As I stare down the barrel of the gun pointed directly at my face, a man with a mask yelling at me to tell them who I work for, I find myself thinking of only him. Robbie Reyes. My Robbie, the love of my life. I should’ve listened to him when he told me to back down from chasing the Watchdogs, but I was so close. And here I am, about to die for nothing. I wish I could see Robbie one last time. I screw my eyes shut, waiting for the end. 

And then screams erupt from all around me, the sounds of people flying and hitting the various shelves and barrels stacked around, smacking against the floor. And the smell. Burning flesh as the screams are silenced one by one, the gunshots that had been going off slowing to a stop, the shells clinking to the cold, hard floor. I crack an eye open, already knowing who I’d see when my eyesight adjusts. A man with a flaming skull head approaches me, tossing a thick chain over his shoulder. He kneels in front of me, his dark eye sockets boring into my own eyes as the flames disappear and Robbie appears, grunting and shaking his head as his skin grows back, his deep eyes the last things I see before I black out.

—----

When I wake, I’m in his room, Robbie sitting next to me on the bed, checking over the bandages placed over various places on my body.

“How long was I out?” I croak, suddenly needing a glass of water. 

“A day or so. Doc checked you out. Slight internal bruising and a shit ton of external ones.”

I try to move and gasp at the pain. “Fuck you slight.”

“Why were you there?”

“You know why.”

“I told you not to go.”

I sigh. “I was so close, Robbie. I had to try-”

“No! You didn’t! You almost died today.”

“But I didn’t!”

He gets up, pacing the room like he does when he’s angry. “But you almost did! And where would that have left Gabe? Where would that have left me?”

“I…what does it matter? I’m trying to protect you both from them!”

Robbie slams his fist on his dresser and I jump at the sound. “I told you, I can take care of them!”

“But-”

He walks over to me, sitting on the bed directly in front of me. “No buts. I can take care of them but what I can’t do is lose you. I…I wouldn’t be half the man I am without you. I love you, chica. Isn’t that enough?”

Tears stream from my eyes and I suck in some air at the pain. “You are enough, Robbie. I just.. I didn’t want you to think I wasn’t useful.”

His eyes soften. “Not useful? Chica, you save my life every day by just being with me. I have no idea what I’ve done to deserve you, but I know I can’t live without you.”

“I love you too, Robbie.”

He cups my face, careful to not upset the bruising and scrapes littered across it. His eyes catch my gaze and I can feel the love pouring from him. “Can you promise me you’ll stop chasing them? If you hear something, you’ll tell me and I’ll- we’ll handle it?”

By we he meant the Rider and him and honestly, after nearly dying, this is an easy answer.

“Of course. I promise.”

“Thank you, chica.”

He cuddles in next to me, careful to avoid hurting me as I snuggle in next to him,  hand in his chest as I feel his heart beat and feel incredibly lucky to have him in my life.

—----

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[rokhal]

GR/RE7 AU fanfic: Weird Fungus

Referencing this piece of meta explaining @wazzappp's amazing All-New Ghost Rider/Resident Evil fusion AU, here is a little fic about Robbie and Gabe settling in to their little off-grid house where the BSAA stashed them after they survived Dulvey, Louisiana, and developed a cleaning compulsion (Robbie) and a sudden desire to wander away where no one can find him physically, audibly, or psychically (Gabe).

To set the scene, imagine some well-meaning BSAA agent sends Robbie this thing in their regular food delivery.

“I appreciate the gesture,” Robbie said, keeping his voice level and his eyes facing the camera of his BSAA-issued laptop, “but please don’t send us any more legs.”

The agent on the other end frizzled out into pixels and cocked her head on a two-second delay. “Legs? Oh, the, uh.” She tapped on her screen. “Jam-on serano? It’s supposed to be really good with wine.”

“Jamón, ham, the leg. With the foot, and the bones and, uh.” Robbie swallowed as he recalled opening the weekly food delivery and finding the top half of the box occupied by a skinned, cured-and-dried, but still massive animal limb, the thin flesh just below the toes still printed with rope marks. He could see the seams between every muscle. He could see its kneecap. At the opposite end, he could see the severed end of its thigh bone. “M-my brother has sensory issues. He doesn’t eat meat anymore. I won’t eat it in front of him.”

The BSAA agent made a note. “We can accommodate special dietary needs if you let us know. Is there anything specific you would prefer?”

Robbie fought the urge to tear at his hair. “Um. Tomato soup? Like, regular tomato soup, not gazpacho? Macaroni noodles. Some kind of cheese that doesn’t get all stringy as soon as it cools down. Frijoles, you know, normal refried beans? He likes those but not the ones that come swimming in the weird broth. Um, fish is okay—as long as it doesn’t have heads or bones in it. Potatoes are good. Eggs are good.”

“There’s some stores near the military base that cater to Americans,” the agent offered, and Robbie died a little inside. “I’ll see if we can order through there. How about vegetables?”

“His garden is growing really good. We’re good for vegetables.”

“Wow.” Robbie wondered if he’d said something wrong as the agent made another note. “Very nice, I’m glad you two are settling in.”

Not much of an option, being on house-arrest, Robbie thought. “Thanks.”

“Are you excited to start classes?”

Robbie knew this script, a back-and-forth he’d muddled through with a half-dozen social workers back in LA. “Very much. I value my education and I will complete my assignments independently and on time.”

She chuckled. Robbie wondered if he’d said something wrong. “You know, this is the real world, not high school. You can ask for help if you need it. Have you picked a major yet?”

The BSAA hadn’t asked before enrolling Robbie in the University of Barcelona’s undergraduate correspondence program, anymore than they’d asked Gabe before signing him up for remote learning with the local equivalent to middle school. “Pick?” he asked hesitantly.

“I think you’ve still got a few weeks to think about it, and you can always change majors, but, yeah, you might want to contact their guidance department if you’re not sure what courses to sign up for.” Now it was Robbie’s turn to make a note. “Chris will be over today, you can try asking him.”

“Oh.” Mr. Redfield’s visits were always on short notice, but Robbie usually had more than a matter of hours to mentally prepare himself. “Uh. We also need more bleach, please.”

“You just got two liters last month,” the agent said. “You know it’s bad for the septic system?”

Robbie kept his face blank, open. “It’s for cleaning. I’m not pouring it in the drains.”

“You know you’re supposed to dilute it?” the agent pressed him.

“One to ten,” Robbie recited, realizing as he said it that he’d managed to use about five gallons of disinfectant in a single month. He may have a problem. “I’m keeping the kitchen clean. The counters and the refrigerator. And both bathrooms. The grout. Under the lid for the cistern. Door handles.”

“Okay, okay.” Robbie winced; two okays was never okay. “I’ll send you more bleach. And some gloves.”

“Thank-you.”

“You sleeping alright?”

Loaded question. Robbie’s eyes flicked involuntarily to the BSAA-issued Alexa perched on a high shelf in the kitchen. “I’m sleeping.”

“Bad dreams?” The agent’s image pixelated again before stabilizing, and Robbie took advantage of the brief signal disruption to press his face hard into both palms. He could control himself during the day but of course their bugs heard it when he woke up screaming.

“Yeah.”

“You want to talk about it?”

Robbie doubted she would take no for an answer and doubted his own ability to prevaricate. He shrugged. “Louisiana. Dinner table with Momm—Mrs. Baker, and her husband and Eveline.” That was an odd feature of his recurring nightmares: he identified Mr. and Mrs. Baker in his thoughts as Mommy and Daddy, and his fear of them was twisted together with familiarity, even gratitude. “They had my body chopped up in pots.”

The agent made a sympathetic noise. “They tried to eat you?”

“Could be worse,” Robbie said, shrugging again. At least the people they ate didn’t turn into fanged piles of black sludge and stagger around their decaying home for eternity. “I think I’m just…” He glanced around the study: empty, except for the big table and the bookshelf full of Spanish novels that had proved embarrassingly challenging. “I’m, like—in my dreams I’m looking down at myself in the pot and Mm-Mrs. Baker tells me to eat up. I mean. They didn’t have any real food.” He crossed his arms and dug his nails into his own elbows, fighting vertigo. “It was all rotten. No cans left. The animals were all dead.”

“You’re worried about what your brother went through,” the agent said, and Robbie straightened.

“No.” He held his breath, grasping for some plausible argument. They killed dogs that ate people, didn’t they? The BSAA’s hold on their lives now was absolute. “They only had him a few months. I, I mean. It’s my dreams. Making things up.”

“Any problems with your medication? You have the list of side effects to watch for?”

“No.” It was a daily BSAA-issued pill. The first day on his antifungal, Robbie threw up black mold into the toilet until he passed out and slept for ten hours. Better out than in, he’d figured. The next day, and every day since, had been fine. “I mean, no side effects. We’re okay.” A bird warbled and piped from outside, loud and close. Robbie hadn’t left any windows open overnight. He straightened and turned, just as he heard the side door click shut. “Gabe?”

“Should we cut this short?” the agent asked, helpful for once, and Robbie nodded.

“I appreciate it. It’s probably nothing.” He ended the call and checked the dining room, where Gabe often read or watched laggy videos on his own BSAA-issued laptop, and Gabe’s room, where a cornucopia of superhero collectibles spilled from the bed to the floor and a faint (illusory, had to be) scent of mildew lingered despite Robbie’s vigorous daily whole-house cleaning schedule. “Gabe?” He must be outside. Robbie tried to calm himself. Just because Gabe had left the house, didn’t mean he was going to wander over the hills and disappear for two days. Again.

He stepped over the threshold, out from the hundred-year-old walls of his new home and into the alien wilderness: hot sun and rocky hills, no sound but the wind in his ears and birds chattering in the spicy-sweet desert shrubs. He squinted downhill, to the south: shrubs, cliffs, the Mediterranean sea glittering up at him. He peered west: shrubs, hills, the distant remains of a shattered stone fort and the faintly visible danger signs surrounding a radioactive ghost town. He checked north: shrubs, gravel driveway that carved switchbacks over the hills until it disappeared over the horizon, still no Gabe. Assuming that it had been Gabe shutting the door behind him and not the wind, he’d only left the house a few minutes ago; he couldn’t have run out of Robbie’s sight that fast. He might be crouched down to examine some plant or insect, or he might be hiding. (It was still so strange to see Gabe doing these things: running, climbing, hiding. The goddamn study had never even suggested their treatment would do anything for Gabe’s physical limitations, just save his life. When he’d first found Gabe in the Baker house, strong and agile and trying his best to stab him to death, he’d thought Gabe was literally possessed by a demon. The little girl’s mental influence was gone; the abilities she’d given Gabe remained.) He circled around to the east side of the house, reassuring himself that he could always run back inside and climb out onto the roof to get a bird’s eye view (Gabe could just crouch down below some fragrant desert bush and almost disappear), and then all the air rushed out of his lungs with a strange little wheeze when he saw Gabe hunched over and kicking something in the garden.

“Hey, Bud.” Gabe hated being snuck up on after Louisiana, and honestly, so did Robbie. (Gabe could sneak up on him now.) Robbie picked his way through the sprawling jungle of the vegetable garden: beans twining up gnarled bushes and driftwood stakes, tomato vines heavy with fruit stretched out over the sandy ground between lush bunches of lettuce, mellow paprika peppers blazing like Christmas lights from leafy stems. Most of Gabe’s plants, he’d started by planting left-over stems and seeds from their weekly meal prep shipment directly into the dirt with a handful of rotting food-scraps, and they never failed to sprout with a few days of watering. Robbie found himself happy to eat these home-grown vegetables; watching Gabe mulch and water them as they unfurled their leaves and their flowers set into fruit made them more trustworthy, somehow, than the bitter green things sold chopped up in bags at the grocery store. If he’d known growing his own food was this easy, he’d have dug up a roadside strip back in Los Angeles years ago.

Normally there were bees buzzing around the pepper and tomato blossoms, but Gabe’s kicking had scared them off. Robbie approached slowly as Gabe grabbed his digging stick. He hated the tingle of fear down his spine. He had to concentrate to keep from grabbing the scar on his left forearm, reminding himself as he so often did that Gabe was a physically normal kid now. Normal kids could be violent. It didn’t mean anything was wrong. It didn’t mean this wasn’t Gabe.

Gabe side-stepped to hide what he’d been kicking from Robbie, shoving dirt over it with his well-worn stick. Robbie still saw a flash of something red, fleshy. He swallowed. “What is that?”

Gabe dropped his stick and rubbed his face in the crook of his elbow, breath hitching. Robbie stepped closer and saw that the red meaty object was not, to his profound relief, an animal. He wasn’t sure what it was: narrow, spongy, bruised and moist from Gabe’s shoe, with dark gray parts and a tapering red stripe on each of its wedge-shaped segments, looking like a dog’s mouth or one of those bizarre tropical flowers that only blooms every hundred years. “Weird fungus,” Gabe managed.

Robbie knelt down to look at it. He’d never seen a wild mushroom before; he didn’t expect them to be so big, or to be shaped like an open mouth. The colors were a bit like the red and white mushrooms in cartoons, though. “Is it poisonous?”

Gabe shook his head. “It helps the vegetables,” he choked out. “But, I. I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry, I’m sorry you got nightmares. I didn’t mean to.”

Robbie covered his mouth. This was his fault; he hadn’t checked that Gabe was in his room before his call with the BSAA agent. He had to get it through his head that Gabe could move quickly and quietly now, that this was their normal. “I’m so sorry you heard that,” he said. That wouldn’t undo that Gabe had heard that. “Buddy. Gabe.” He reached up for a hug, and Gabe hesitated, staring at his left arm. “That’s just a dream. That’s just my brain trying to make sense of things that make me unhappy, and I’m unhappy about what the Bakers and, and Eveline did to you. Not anything you did. Okay?” Gabe sniffled and rubbed his face again, and Robbie kept his arms open, waiting. “I’m so proud of you for making it out of there. For surviving. I’ll never blame you for anything you had to do to survive.”

Gabe stared down at the stomped remains of the mushroom. “I’m not creepy?”

“No, never. You’re my little bro,” Robbie assured him, and Gabe sat down and flung himself against Robbie’s side. “Why’d you kill the mushroom?”

“Cause it gave you my nightmares,” Gave mumbled. He must mean, nightmares about me, an accurate deduction that would make Dr. DaCosta back home intensely proud of his social reasoning skills, except that Robbie had never seen this mushroom before. Robbie figured that before Gabe smashed it, it must have been nightmarish to look at, in a Hot Topic sort of way. “It’s creepy.”

“I think it looks cool,” Robbie remarked. Spain was full of cool things, now that he had the time and safety to sit back and contemplate them: bugs. Seaweed and weird critters that washed up on the beach. Flowers. Birds that sang—he’d thought their reputation for “singing” was an exaggeration, but it turned out that birds actually do sing. An infinite carpet of stars stretching out overhead, pinks and blues and yellows and so many tiny white lights that the black night might as well have been splashed with foam. And now, huge mushrooms that looked like toothy mouths. “You said it helps the garden, right? I’m not scared of mushrooms that aren’t poisonous.”

“Sure you’re not,” Gabe muttered.

“I’m not scared of mushrooms outside the house,” Robbie qualified. “Will the vegetables be okay?”

Gabe looked up and bit his lip. “Maybe. If I water more. They can’t use the seawater.”

“I’ll calculate how much we can spare from the cistern without running low,” Robbie offered. “We can take shorter showers.”

“I’ll just grow another one.” Gabe poked at the fragments of mushroom with his shoe.

“You can do that?” Robbie had heard that mushrooms were easy to grow with a kit, but he’d never seen it done. He felt a swell of pride at the gardening knowledge Gabe had absorbed from his tablet so quickly.

“It’s really easy,” Gabe said. “But. You gotta tell me if you get my dreams again. Okay?”

“Okay.” Robbie hugged him tighter. “I won’t take your dreams.”

“I don’t think you can do that.” A bee circled overhead and landed on a bean flower. They watched as it nudged its whole head inside the petals, wings and legs fluttering industriously.

[sprnklersplashes]

fic commissioned by @andforthecoating thank you for your donation to Operation Olive Branch

"gabe & natalie. prompt: gabe as a ghost (ambigious if he is or just a hallucination, like maybe he can move things but it might be her doing it idk) that Natalie starts to see/hear at some point in the show and some form of sibling bonding (he takes care of her/they have a talk/her emotions around what he means for the family)."

(ao3) fanfic fundraiser

The house is quiet.

It’s to be expected; it’s close to 2am when Henry drops her home. Every house in the street has lights switched off and curtains drawn. But her house has always felt different, right from when she learned how to recognise it. The rest of the street is quiet, but the silence in her house feels heavier.

Henry says goodnight with a kiss on her forehead. She doesn’t need to turn around to know that he’s lingering there as she opens the door, headlights on and engine softly running. 

So stupid, she thinks, as a faint blush creeps across her cheeks. So ridiculously stupid, she thinks as the smile on her face grows.

Boots in her hand, Natalie creeps through the hall and up the stairs. She’s still relatively new to this whole sneaking-back-after-curfew thing; before now, her late-night study sessions were confined to her bedroom. Still, she’s nothing if not a good student. Quiet on the balls of her feet, quick past her parents’ bedroom, opening her door carefully so it doesn’t creak.

Prom night begins to wear off as soon as she reaches her bed. It fades from her like rain running off a rooftop and she lets out a mighty yawn, limbs already sinking into the mattress. Her boots were tossed on the floor as she came in. Vaguely, she’s aware that she should take off her dress and probably her make-up too, but as her eyes fall closed she’s content with it being tomorrow’s problem. Half-wrapped in her duvet, she presses her face into the mattress, just inches away from sleep when-

“And what sort of time is this?”

Her eyes open.

Natalie bolts up, her thumping heart matched only by the echo in her head. Chest heaving, she scans her room as a small, hopeful voice asks if she imagined it. But she heard it, crystal clear. She couldn’t make that up.

As she reaches for the bedside lamp, the hair on her neck rises, the distinct feeling of being watched washes all over her. Her free hand grabs her purse and reaches for the pepper spray inside.

As soon as the light is on, she sees him. A figure stands against her closet. The scream is wrenched from her throat, and in her haste she forgets all about the pepper spray and chucks a pillow at him.

Her aim is off. It lands sadly just beside him. He looks down at it, bemused.

“Nice shot.”

“Who the fuck are you?” she hisses. “And how the hell did you get in my room?”

“Oh, you love the descriptors don’t you?” he asks wryly. “The fuck. The hell.” Natalie is sitting straight up, pepper spray hot in her hand, plans forming in her mind. She could blind him with the spray, then grab the alarm clock and bludgeon him with it. She could grab a belt or the cord for the curtain and tie his legs together. Yet as the plans pull together, he just looks at her, and in his gaze there’s a familiarity that holds her back. A small, adamant whisper of you know him.

He crosses the room, his gait brimming with false confidence. In the lamplight, she can see the deep brown eyes, dark hair sticking up in every direction. She sees that he can’t be much older than she is.

Then, he’s in front of her. She holds the pepper spray up, eyes bright and hand steady. He blinks, then reaches out. His hand slips through her hair, so light she doesn’t feel a thing. When he smiles, there’s a sadness in it.

“You look so like Mom,” he mumbles. She isn’t sure if he’s talking to her or himself.  

Natalie’s breath hitches, and all at once the realisation crashes over her, a tsunami wave against a tiny coastal town. Her head shakes because no, this is not-

She’s lost it. She has really, truly lost it. 

“Gabriel.” The syllables tremble on her tongue, as if they don’t want to come together. Gabriel smirks, then bows like he’s on stage. Natalie’s mouth hangs open, the sour aftertaste of his name lingering there. Carefully, the pepper spray lowers. 

They stand there, the silence so full that Natalie fears it will shatter. Gabriel rocks on his heels, his hands in his back pockets. 

He’s beautiful, Natalie can’t deny that. Long lashes and big doe eyes that would drive anyone wild. Dimples when he smiles and a face that’s almost angelic. There’s nothing of her in him; his skin is peachy where hers is pale, his eyes sparkle with no red anywhere. He’s handsome, just as mom always said he was. 

“You don’t look like your baby pictures.”

“Probably because I was a baby,” he says jovially. He speaks like it’s all one big game, which maybe it is to him. She doesn’t know how ghosts operate-if he is actually a ghost and not something conjured by her fucked-up mind. 

“You have questions.”

“Not really,” she says. It’s false. Sure she has questions, the main one being ‘what the fuck’. She also has several things she would like to say to him and the list grows longer by the second. She clears her throat, pushes her hair off her shoulder, and settles for the most obvious one. “Why are you here?”

Gabe folds his arms, his shoulders wriggle. He smiles so innocently, so easily. Like it means nothing to him. Like it’s obvious.

“Is it so wrong to want to see you?” he asks. “I kept trying to talk to you but I just couldn’t. You’re my sister after all. I want to talk to you.” The word sister feels more akin to a slap in the face. She flinches and Gabriel’s eyes widen. 

“You’re a pretty lousy brother,” she tells him. He scowls at that, like a kid being put in the corner.

“I mean… it was not my fault that I died, was it?” He gives a half-hearted shrug, face half-turned away. “Believe me, I was not planning on it.”

Everything hits her at once. Sixteen long, lonely years of living in this house, constantly cold in his shadow. Sixteen years of sitting like a forgotten book on a shelf and counting up every achievement and trophy in the hopes that they’d make her mother see her. Wandering the world like a ghost, like someone who was never fully born. Pausing her movie or closing her book because her mom was screaming downstairs. 

It rumbles, a thunderstorm in her chest, until her fingers shake and her heart is pounding and Gabe is looking at her with concern all over his perfect, lovely face.

She grabs the alarm clock from her dresser and chucks it. 

Gabe gasps and he ducks just a second before it hits him. The clock smacks into the wardrobe, the door shudders with the impact, then hits the floor. The back falls off, batteries roll out. The hands fall limply to one side. 

And then she’s crying. She’s crying because her alarm clock is broken. 

“Natalie?” There’s a knock at her door. Gabe freezes, his expression like a deer in headlights and at once, he dives to the floor and presses against the closet. Covered in shadows, Natalie can barely see him. All there is is the faint notion of him pleading with her. When she looks again, she sees him press a finger to his lips.

“Nat?” her dad asks again. She hastily wipes her face and rushes to the door, positioning herself so none of her room is visible. A voice whispers that she’s ridiculous, because if he looked in he’d find no-one there. But… look there’s only so much she can risk right now.

“You okay hon?” he asks. “I heard-I thought I heard you shouting.”

“I’m fine,” she replies. This part is easy. She’s become something of an expert at lying. “I-I saw a spider.”

“A spider?”

“Yeah.” She nods, taps her nails against the wood. “Really big one. I killed it though so it’s-it’s fine.” Her dad nods once, slowly, skepticism plain as day on his face. He studies her, sleep-heavy eyes drilling into her face. Natalie wonders what he sees when he looks at her. Gabe had said she looks like Mom. Does he see that too? The ghost of the woman he sacrificed everything to save? The ghost of Gabe? Did he ever look at her and see her?

“Well, good night then.”

“Good night Dad.”

She closes the door gently, with a soft and quick exhale.

Then she storms over to her bed, throws herself on it, and cries into her pillow. 

Fuck, she was meant to be done with this.

It’s not long before Gabe sits down beside her. She doesn’t exactly feel it, not in the normal way. The bed doesn’t sink under his extra weight. Instead she senses him, like a small pull in her chest. When she turns over, she finds him cross-legged atop the covers, elbows resting on his knees and picking at a loose nail. His head is slightly bowed, eyes half-obscured by his hair. He looks normal. He looks sad. 

“I hate you,” she mumbles. “I fucking hate you.”

“I know,” Gabe sighs. He pulls his knees to his chest and rests his chin on top of them. Guilt prickles against her skin and Natalie wants to scream because why should she feel bad? 

They sit there for a long time. It’s quiet enough that Natalie could fall asleep if she wanted to. She has a feeling Gabe wouldn’t stop her and that’s what keeps her awake. Whether he’s real or a dream or she’s just straight up crazy, she wants to see this to the end. 

“I was six when I found out about you,” Natalie croaks. “Because Mom forgot my birthday and then two months later she threw a party for you. I thought it was a make-up party for me but it-it was for you.” She sniffles. “Then when I was seven, I cut my hair real short. I figured since Mom had lost you I’d just look like you and give her you back.” She chokes, a ragged sob tears from her. “Mom took one look at me and ran out of the room crying.”

“I remember,” Gabe says weakly. She looks up at him, eyes blazing. Her hurt is a tangible thing; it hangs in the air like fog. “You wore hats for the rest of the year until it grew back.”

“What did you think?”

“I think you looked ridiculous with it,” he offers. And for some fucking reason, Natalie laughs. It’s a short-lived little thing, but it was there. Gabe pulls himself inward, his thumb rubs circles against his leg.

“I won’t lie to you,” he tells her. He curls in on himself, traces patterns on his jeans. “A lot of the time, I liked it. I liked when Mom looked at me instead of you. Hell, I pushed for it. Because if Mom was looking at me-it meant I was still alive.” He closes his eyes and breathes out. “It felt like I never died.”

“You did though,” she says. It’s so blunt and so cruel that she can’t quite believe she said it. “You died, Gabriel. And you were meant to stay dead.” She gasps, her chest and cheeks burning. The worst taste bitter and she spits them out. “It would’ve been better for everyone.” Hot tears roll down her face. “You ruined my fucking life and you want my sympathy?”

“I don’t want your sympathy,” he sighs. His head falls back, and the light catches the matching tears on his face. Natalie blinks. She didn’t know ghosts could cry. She doesn’t want him to cry.

“I never meant for any of this to happen.” His voice is hollow. “For this whole time, I never thought about what was happening to you. I just-” He swallows, shudders, looks down at his hands. “I was lonely. And I was angry.”

“Join the club.” It doesn’t come out quite as angrily as she meant it. Gabe looks at her, brown eyes so wide that she can’t breathe. At this moment, he doesn’t look like a monster or a ghost or a phantom; he looks seventeen. He looks like her brother. Natalie reaches for the hatred and the anger that she knows and it slips through her fingers.

Maybe she’s growing. Maybe she’s just tired.

“I’m so sorry, Natalie,” he says. And that squeezes her heart like a vice. It squeezes until the edges crack and the pain comes spilling out until it’s all over her and her bedsheets and it’s all over Gabe too, because he’s crawled over to her and his hand is on her shoulder and he’s sobbing with her. And she doesn’t want to push him away. She wants him to hold all over shattered pieces with her.

(How many times can a person be broken and rebuilt in one night?)

For a long, long moment, they’re silent. All they can hear is her beating heart and the catch in her breath and a car passing outside.

“I think in another life we were friends,” she says. Her voice breaks. She feels, rather than sees, Gabe’s smile. His shoulders sag, as if she took some weight from him.

“I hope so,” he mutters against her hair. It sounds real. He sighs, presses his weightless body into hers. Atop her covers, his fingers brush hers and while the physical sensation isn’t there, something else is. Something soft, warm, tickling her skin.

It feels like forgiveness. 

“Get some sleep, kiddo,” he tells her. “I’ll watch over you.”

“Creepy,” she mutters. Gabe averts his eyes as she steps out of her dress and dumps it on the chair. She pulls on a t-shirt and Gabe sits quietly as she scrubs off her make-up. He shuffles aside as she flips over the covers, her eyes half-closed. She’s almost certain that he won’t be there when she wakes up. 

“Hey,” she says. “One more question.”

“Of course.”

“Are you real?” She lifts her heavy head, forcing her eyes open. With tiredness blurring her vision, helooks more hazy. He could fade away in one blink. “Or am I actually crazy.”

Gabe chuckles, a warm, throaty sound. His fingers brush her hairline.

“Would you believe me if I said I don’t know?” 

“Yeah,” mumbles. Her eyes fall closed. “Yeah I would.”

Isn’t it a classic Goodman trait, to not know if you’re real or not?

She wakes late the next morning, when the sun is already blaring through her window. Her room is aglow, painted in yellows and oranges. 

The alarm clock is back on her table. The hands tick steadily.  The closet door is solid, intact.

Her blue dress is hanging against it, carefully pressed and her boots laid underneath. 

She smiles. 

[nerdthatsiriuslylovesteaxx]

Helpless part 26

He needed to try, the Ghost king shaked as he walked towards cabin 1, lifting his hand to knock, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. He couldn't fucking admit it, was too much. He walked back to his cabin, sweating, shaking, in tears. He took out a back of cigarettes, breathing in the nicotine, letting the smoke fill his lungs. He had to try again, he knew he wouldn't live if he didn't, he wished he could die, but he couldn't leave Hazel alone, she didn't deserve to suffer. A small part of his brain wondered... she had Frank, Reyna and that other girl, what was her name? Lavinia? But he knew he needed to at least try, if only for his younger sister. Tears streamed down his face as he forced himself to walk to the Posidon cabin, he wasn't sure why but he felt like Percy would be easier to talk to. His hand shaked as he knocked on the door, he wanted to run away but he didn't let himself, he couldn't be weak. Percy opened the door, instantly pulling Nico inside. The Ghost king sat on the bed and in a voice that was barely louder than a whisper, though tear spoke."..H.. Help me... please, I-I can't let- Hazel... be alone."

"You'll be okay, I'll help you." He pulled the sobbing boy into a hug,

"I'm not even worth fucking helping."

"Nico, I know you've gone through a lot, but you can't give up on life. Everyone's worth saving."

"I'm a suicidal faggot who can't have half a normal conversation with living people and everyone hates me because my dad is the king of the Underworld."

"Shh.. I know it's been hard, I know everything seems to be against you, but things will get better."

"I'm a fucking freak, the only reason I'm not dead yet is because I didn't want to leave Hazel alone but who fucking knows, maybe she'd be better off without a brother that killed two people. I want to give up."

"I wanted to as well."

"What..?" Percy turned his arm around, revealing pale scars streaking up and down his arms. "But... Why? When?"

"Well..., a lot of them were from before I found out I was a demigod."

"Doesn't that mean you were..."

"Eleven? Yes, my step dad, he was a nightmare."

{Percy's memory's}

"Can't wait till the fall, you'll get out from under my roof again."

"You're not even employed, how is this your roof? And I got back yesterday, leave me alone."

"Now litsen here you son of a bitch, the only place you will ever get in that fucking life of your is jail. You can't even fucking spell, your grades are worse than a first grader that's how fucking retarded you are. Go fetch me a beer, that's the only thing you're good for anyways, your slut of a mother isn't around all day to get it for me."

"DON'T SAY A WORD ABOUT MY MOM!"

"Oh, you want to be a little bitch? I'll see how strong you are in three fucking minutes." I ran into to my room, desperately trying to lock the broken door. He walked inside, snapping the belt.

"Now you're going to learn to respect me you bitch." I didn't reply, I knew that would only make things worse than they already are. The leather hit my back, I didn't flich, I wanted to scream from the pain but I wouldn't let him break me. Again, I knew the routine. Punches, kicks, yelling, I had it memorised, same as every summer before, same as every day. He kicked me to the side of my room, locking it from the outside with a padlock.I wouldn't cry, I can't give him the satisfaction. My whole body burned, I look at the scars left by the studded leather belt, I wanted to add more. Who would care anyways? I had no friends, mom might have cared but she's barely around with how much she's working, Gabe would be happy if I were gone. I glace over at my arm where there were pale, jagged lines from last summer, some were my own work, some were from the empty, broken bottles he'd thrown at me. It's not like school was any better, they just kept it all hidden, they don't even fucking care, they just do it to make you think they do. They care just as much as every other school that kicked me out, they'd be happy it's one less person to be responsible for. I grab a knife I had hidden in the back of a drawer, I pull it across my wrist, letting the stinging pain take over me. Again, I wanted to feel the pain, again, I could fucking help it. Mom would be disappointed, but I can't keep fucking living like this. I hate my self, I hate my school and I just hate my fucking life. I hear the rattle of the lock, fuck, I needed to cover this up. It has to be mom, Gabe wouldn't let me out so quickly.

"Percy I'm home; for God's sake Gabriel you are not allowed to lock my son in his room! Remember I'm the one paying for th-... I'll talk to you later."

"S-sorry." I didn't know what to do, but for once, I let myself cry, for the first time since boarding school, first time since Gabe, first time since my life started going to shit.

Oh if only I knew what life going to shit was back then, Percy thought to himself. "Well... there were other reasons, I was bullied pretty badly for years and I didn't have very any friends before meeting Grover."

"You were eleven, and wanted to die?"

"It seemed easier than living at the time, but please trust me, it's worth living, things will start to look up."

"How- how did you stop?"

"My mom helped a lot, but I did have to go to therapy for a year after that."

"Did you ever do it after that?"

"Yeah, I only stopped because I knew my friends would die if I couldn't save them."

"But... why did you do it? Your life.. it was far from perfect, sure, but you're the Percy Jackson, most powerful demigod at camp half-blood, you're..."

"I thought I killed Annabeth."

"Was... that when I was there? With Bianca?"

"Yeah..., Nico the point of this, it doesn't make you any weaker, I know your life's been hard, but you'll always be worth saving. You might think that no one cares, but people care, and people will notice when you're gone, think of every life you've touched."

"Tell me about Luke."

"What?"

"Luke Castellan, tell me about him."

"He was a hero, taken advantage of by a titan yet people say he was evil because he didn't like he deadbeat dad. He was right about the fact-"

"-Before that. When you first met him, you loved him... didn't you? Tell me about the time before the prophecy."

"He- he was amazing, most talented swordsman I ever knew, incredible teacher, kind of every at camp, and he was one of the first people, ever who didn't give me shit from the day we met and yes I-I loved him. That's why I could never blame him for anything he did, not a second of it."

"Did he know?"

"I barely knew myself, but I think he did."

"Thank you for telling me, and... saying you would... help."

"Nico, course I would, you're like my brother." He pulled the younger boy into a hug, he heard him whisper something in italien before walking off. It sounded sort of sad, but Percy couldn't even remotely guess what the words meant.

***

[moosemonstrous]

Ghost Rider Pacific Rim AU - night classes

“It’s so cool,” Gabe pulls his face down to get a better look at his eye. “You’re like Dr Luo! Is it like that forever now?”

Robbie wracks his brain for an image of Dr Luo – he’s pretty sure that’s one of the bad guys in Ninja Wolf. Wait, this hurts your feelings? That’s hilarious. It’s nothing. He’s just glad Gabe isn’t freaked out by the way his pupil is still misshapen, the surrounding iris cloudy-brown from the broken blood vessels. Dr Montesi said the damage is mostly cosmetic, but seemed a little taken aback that he could see without much trouble. She spent the majority of their appointment frowning and making notes while Cho rattled off incomprehensible test results. They clearly arrived at some sort of a reluctant conclusion, but didn’t translate it into non-PhD, so all he knows is that he needs to go into the resonance machine again, this time for a full-body scan. MRI became MRS, which will apparently make all the difference.

He’s been prescribed extra rations. He’s already struggling to finish what the mess hall considers regular ones – but Gabe is always hungry after finishing his, so it’s hardly a problem.

“It should go back to normal in a couple of weeks,” he says as Gabe pulls his lower eyelid down. “How was school, anyway? Did you meet anyone new?”

While school-prep was essentially quarantine, proper ‘school’ turns out to be something of a misnomer – it’s a classroom attached to the unattended minors centre where the whole base dumps their kids when their guardians are at work, or otherwise occupied. Sometimes, after a demon attack, some of the children find themselves permanent residents until alternative care can be arranged. It’s good for them to be used to the environment.

“We’ve been notified you will be joining the academy,” the teacher told Robbie while Gabe was saying goodbye to his new classmates. He didn’t offer congratulations. “You don’t need to worry about the schedule. I know Major Brooks likes to run his sessions long.”

Major Brooks can like his sessions on the moon for all Robbie cares. He’s not letting Gabe live out of a temp bunk full of abandoned and orphaned children. The nightmare he had, the one about dying in The Charger – Didn’t die. – still makes him uneasy, and he has no plans on joining any strike teams. Besides, it seems a little unfair – as in any other childcare facility he’s ever seen, the staff are stretched thin and never paid enough for all they’re asked to do. Robbie can’t imagine preparing for a shift with sixty kids and ending up with a hundred, because someone up in the dome ran an exercise for an extra two hours.

That’s because you’ve never been in a Kwoon ring. Trust me, it’s better than hanging around a cripple all day.

He freezes. Was that–

“...and Lin said her dad can make me elbow pads like hers,” Gabe finishes recounting. Crap, Robbie didn’t mean to space out like that. “I want to draw her a picture from her story. Can we get the book?”

Gabe has a school-issued tablet that came complete with a stern warning about selling Shatterdome property. It takes Robbie longer than he’d like to figure out how to access the online library. Every piece of technology they get is second-hand or renovated, and still years ahead of what he could afford back in L.A.

The e-reader has adjustable text size and screen contrast, and a read-aloud option. Damn, you’re easy to impress. The book Gabe requested seems to be some sort of a video game novelisation.

This is all too good to be true, he thinks when Gabe is busy finishing his second helping of noodle soup while following the text along to the narrator in his earphones. The stipend he’s getting from medical is slightly less than what he’d make as a mechanic, and nowhere near enough to save up and leave, but so much on the base is provided for free it’s not really a concern. It feels not unlike the first few weeks in their own flat back in Hillrock Heights – a to-date unprecedented amount of comfort. That lasted only seven months before the demon attack. According to the countdown display, the next one is due in three weeks.

“Robbie-Robbie,” Gabe sing-songs without looking away from the screen. “Your soup is getting cold.”

“You’re holding it wrong. Extend your thumb,” Robbie says to his dad, grabbing his staff to demonstrate.

Dad is only a couple of inches taller than him. He rolls his eyes. He looks… fond.

“I can still knock the snot out of you, soldier boy.”

Robbie laughs. It sounds forced. “Yeah? That a threat?”

“Hell yeah.” Dad looks a little unsure for a moment. “Seriously, Juliana is watching. Go easy on me, huh?”

Robbie doesn’t remember having dreams like that before. Normal stuff, sometimes nightmares, but never these… these weird whole-scene narratives. He lies in his cot for a good ten minutes, trying to level his breathing; it felt so real. His arms ache.

Four in. Hold four. Four out. It’s being in the Shatterdome. Back in the Shatterdome. It’s messing with whatever… block he’s got in his head. There are records – classified, but maybe if he asked–

Or you could just plug back into The Charger. It’s got what you need.

Is it weird that Gabe doesn’t seem interested? Then again, he was too little to remember dad at all. He stopped asking after mom fairly quickly too. It used to be a point of pride for Robbie – he could do it by himself. They didn’t need anyone else.

He presses his knuckles into his eyes until he sees sparks. Jesus, pull yourself together. Right. He swings down from his bunk and goes to wake Gabe up – he’s been sleeping like a log with all the noise suppression in the crew quarters. They have morning routine down to the minute – roll out the kinks from Gabe’s legs and lower back, make sure he doesn’t try to spit out the one pill that doesn’t come in a sugar shell, decant the rest of the day’s meds plus emergency supply into the plastic container, check the medical info sheet is still in his backpack where it’s supposed to be. Gabe showers in the evenings, and Robbie in the mornings while he gets dressed. Back in L.A., the harried social worker he used to harass for advice mentioned that now Gabe is a teenager, Robbie needs to occasionally leave him alone behind a closed door, and this is the best he can offer – other than never, ever thinking about it any further in any detail.

All the kids get meals at the beginning of each shift, so he drops Gabe off first before looping back to the mess hall for his prescription food. Most of everything on offer is vegetarian, but with his new academy assignment Robbie can technically access the pork. It’s half eight in the morning – he has to solemnly promise the old lady behind the counter that he won’t starve to death on just rice and beans.

It turns out to be the wrong choice.

*

Tony waves Amadeus over to the edge of the viewing platform and points to the mat to the far side of the gym, where Robbie Reyes is getting his ass handed to him for the fifteenth time in a row. He’s probably counting, too. He looks the type.

“Ouch,” Amadeus hisses in sympathy. “Wasn’t he supposed to just run laps?”

“Yep,” Tony pops the ‘p’. He wishes he’d brought popcorn. “Don’t ask me, they were already at it when I got here.”

They watch the sixteenth match end, once again, with Reyes flat on his back on the mat. Tony waits until Eric gets him up again to nod his head to the other side of the platform. “Watch the Colonel.”

Ivanov doesn’t make a habit of observing the recruits. He shows up in the Kwoon Combat Room for pair ups, because that’s always good fun, but the cadets are pretty pitiful until Eric whips them into shape, and the brass tends to train when the impressionable young people can’t hear their backs creak from the effort. He’s been watching Reyes like a hawk, though, and according to Tony’s quick dig into base surveillance, arrived just in time to potentially instruct their Fightmaster to change up his training program. Eric doesn’t sway from his routines unless directly threatened with public speaking. Or unless Carol asks nicely enough, and she’s on duty this morning.

“His orthodontist will have some work to do,” Amadeus comments. He produces a pack of jelly beans from his coat pocket and offers some to Tony. “Are we being anti-establishment again?”

“Please, we’re always anti-establishment. Say, I know nothing about martial arts. Is Reyes any good?”

Only the rangers stand any chance of winning against Eric, and usually only after several years of learning his every move. That the kid hasn’t tapped out yet is already pretty impressive, but Tony has been known to mistake stubbornness for skill before. Amadeus crunches on the jelly beans for a long moment before replying.

“It’s like he’s been studying from old movies,” he says, thoughtful. “Knows what to do, but can’t back it up.”

“Did he mention getting any lessons?”

“Two boxing classes at fifteen.” Amadeus has the good sense to appear slightly red-faced at how quickly he pulled that information out of his giant brain. Tony magnanimously lets it slide. “What are you saying?”

He shrugs. “Nothing. But something smells funny here, doesn’t it?”

“Wait till you see what Montesi pulled out of his MEG scan.”

“Oooh, do tell.”

One level below, Reyes begins losing his cool. He puts enough strength into his next hit that when the wooden staff hits the mat instead of Eric’s leg, it bounces back and nearly hits him square in the face. Tony really doesn’t know much about fighting – he’s more of a lover type – but he knows Eric Brooks, and under three hundred layers of repression and self-esteem issues no therapist in the universe could crack, the big guy appears to be surprised.

“Not here,” Amadeus pockets his jelly beans. “Patient confidentiality and all that.”

That’s even more curious. “That good?” Amadeus has that look on his face. It’s been a while since Tony had last seen it, and he can’t say he enjoyed the resulting mayhem. “Alright, boy wonder. Lead the way.”

[cherubchoirs]

We've had an angel-ified V1, what do you think of a machine Gabe?

When I first got the game, my only exposure to it was fanart, and I had assumed from what I'd seen that both V1 and Gabriel were robots made in the image of angels. I've seen some people play around with fanart and theories of Gabe secretly being a machine, what do you think of it?

Also, how do you prefer to receive fan art of Fallen Gabe? Sent over inbox or just tagging you?

i'm honestly very split about how i feel about the idea, because i absolutely love gabriel as an angel and actually how that reflects being a machine despite apparently being so much above earthly existence, yet i also think it's incredibly interesting to explore how turning out to be a machine would affect his entire sense of self. so when i do consider the idea, i naturally like to go half in on it with the thought that gabriel was once an angel but was torn apart and remade as a machine by the council basically as an experiment in obedience. so it's sort of a ghost in the shell scenario, leaving gabriel to wonder what this means for his memories, his existence, and even his identity - is he still an angel for presumably still having the "soul" he once possessed? or is he just a construct given gabriel's memories? and it taps into the genuine pointlessness of his service - he wasn't even made by god, he shares no part in heaven. i think it would genuinely lead to a breakdown of his self and personality, not just by feeling "fake", but to think he may not truly be gabriel, just something that stole a dead man's memories and took pride in an identity that was never his. just a foolish computer that believed all the lies programmed into it. an ai that mimicked gabriel's personality and walked around as his macabre copy (because i think even if he truly once was gabriel, he could never know what digitizing that identity did to it).

i will say it also makes a very unique scenario for him seeking out v1 because he finds the wires and circuits beneath the blood in his body and he just. needs help. he needs someone to tell him what he is. and in that intense panic, he flees to the only machine he kind of...knows. and it's very sweet, v1 teaching him about maintenance and figuring out just what kind of computer he is, as well as the dilemma of him likely running on emergency power as the light was his source. of course, v1 doesn't recognize most of his components (heaven-made electronics! cool!), but it doesn't say anything to that effect since it knows all that's gonna do is panic him again - plus it's confident it can figure it out. so i do really like the element of how they might bond over this and how v1 helps gabriel accept himself as he is...as well as the idea that they go hunting to figure out just what happened in his past - if he was ever truly an angel, if he's entirely constructed, or if he's somewhere in-between.

(and you can send it either way! i think it's easiest if you tag me tho :])

[leatafandom]

🦮 "Gabriel's gaze couldn't stop stalling over the wound he had healed or his hands that had healed it. The slick slide of blood and the sound of shuddered breaths wouldn't leave his mind. There was no denying that the fear in his chest had been more than just the terror of losing another mortal friend, and he couldn't ignore it."

(i had to!! lol)

Lmao! I was wondering if you would. I know it was supposed to be a snippet, but... I slipped and wrote a whole fic. I hope you enjoy it!

Ship: Sabriel - Gabriel/ Sam Winchester

Rating: Mature

Word Count: 1,223

Warnings and Tags hurt/comfort, blood & injury, friends to lovers, feelings realization, fluff, hurt/comfort, getting together, first kiss

It wasn't a big deal; a hunt gone wrong. It wasn't even anything spectacular. Basic human slowness and lack of higher vision, because Sam was many things but above all else he was human. Gabriel had lost humans before, it wasn't a new feeling to lose someone who was meant to die. It was an unfortunate downside of befriending mortals. This however wasn't the familiar feeling of grief. It was fear, regret, and heartache. It was the loss of something more. This time he was fast enough and flew towards the weak prayer to a rundown house filled with more than one pissed-off spirit. 

“Shit.” Gabriel didn't have any other words as he rushed to his knees before the gurgling human. ”I got ya,” he whispered, his hands wrapping around Sam's throat. Gabriel's lips tightened, swallowing back the waves of what-ifs at the slick feeling of Sam's blood between his fingers. “Give it a second, kid,” he whispered as terror gripped him even as the blood ran back into Sam's slashed open throat. “Don't try to talk, I'm here.”

The brunette tried to nod and breathe as his windpipe cleared of blood. His fingers gripped the edges of Gabriel's jacket, closing his eyes, and trusting his friend to handle helping Dean and the teenagers with him. Gabriel's eyes didn't look away from Sam as the hunter's consciousness faded at the sudden fall and rise of his blood pressure. Gabriel's eyes filled with grace, hiding his fear in fury and packing it away until Sam was back in the Impala. 

Unfortunately, he had moved past fury quickly after having cleared the ghosts that had lingered within the house. He didn't leave once the Winchesters had returned to the Bunker. It wasn't uncommon for him to hang out with them in the Bunker, but Gabriel's gaze couldn't stop stalling over the wound he had healed or his hands that had healed it. The slick slide of blood and the sound of shuddered breaths wouldn't leave his mind. There was no denying that the fear in his chest had been more than just the terror of losing another mortal friend, and he couldn't ignore it. It was all he thought about as he sat with Sam throughout his day. 

The internal contemplation left him noticeably quieter and filled with anxious movement. He couldn't help the way his gaze lingered or how he seemed to put more into being helpful rather than pushing his luck with the brothers. The older being was sure that Sam had noticed, but Gabriel had brushed anyone’s comments on his fidgeting away with a joke. The being unsure of what to do with the realization of how much Sam had come to mean to him. He pushed the questions about his behavior away until the one person he needed to talk to questioned it, and he couldn’t avoid it anymore. 

“Hey, Gabe?” When the archangel in question didn't look up, Sam signed as he glanced at him from the drawer he was shifting through. “Gabriel?” He repeated more sternly, frowning when the archangel finally looked up.  

“Huh?” 

“You're being quiet,” Sam frowned, twisting around the storage room to face the shorter being bodily. “Are you sure you're okay?” This wasn't the first time he had caught the archangel staring at his hands and falling quiet.

“I'm fine, Sam, stop mother-henning me,” he replied with a curled lip, moving a box for show. 

Sam’s frown didn't lift, studying him for a moment. “Sure.” Hazel eyes rolled as he drew out the word, watching Gabriel try to hide behind humor and his pointless shifting of crates. “Come on, I know something's on your mind. You know you can talk to me,” he offered, looking away from him and back to the list of items they were looking for. “You just seem off, lately,” he said before he read off the list again.

Gabriel huffed, poking at the box he had moved for no reason at all knowing that the weapons and ingredients they needed weren't there. He kicked the toe of his sneakers against the cement floor with a frown, determined not to start lying to Sam now. 

“I’ve just been thinkin’,” he mumbled, looking over his shoulder at the other. 

Sam didn’t look up from the list, his fingers tapping on the tabletop before moving to another cabinet and pulling out a satchel of dried plants. “Yeah, I kinda figured you were in your head.” He stood back up adding it to the small collection they had made, watching as Gabriel moved to take up the list. “Something I can help with?” 

Gabriel offered a hum and a slight nod, eyes looking from the list and towards one of the drawers. “Maybe… probably,” he said as he tossed through a row of drawers before he found the iron brand he was searching for. “I just realized something, when you were hurt like that.” 

The brunette nodded, crossing his arms over his chest as Gabriel walked back with the small token, putting it with the others. “I’ve gotten hurt before, died before. I'm fine. You healed me.” Sam’s broad shoulders shrugged, used to the risk of his profession as he grabbed a larger bowl and a jar of pig’s blood. “Thank you by the way,” he added, unsure if he had already thanked the archangel for finding him. 

The shorter being waved a hand physically brushing off the hunter's thanks. “You don’t have to thank me, Sam,” he said, narrowing and glaring at the row of cabinets and premade potions.

“So,” the brunette started, lips twisting as Gabriel glared at the cabinets before searching through them. “What did you realize?” He asked as Gabriel found the copper dagger the spell required.

He sighed looking at it as he walked back to Sam. “That I really needed you to be safe,” the shorter being mumbled, looking up at the brunette before looking down as he placed the knife with the bits of a spell they had gathered in hopes of helping a couple of hunters. When Gabriel looked back Sam’s brows were pinched and his lips already forming his next words, words Gabriel knew would give him an out if he wanted it. “I didn’t want to lose you. Lose more time together. Before we were even together. I didn’t want to be too slow, or not have enough juice... And once you were safe I just… I just wanted to kiss you.” 

After a moment his lips opened and closed without a sound, and the tall man shuffled his feet. Sam’s brow didn’t loosen nor break Gabriel's serious stare. “Do you,” he cleared his throat, eyes darting away from the archangel before going back to him. “Do you still want to kiss me?” he asked, watching Gabriel’s fine movements closely. 

Gabriel blinked, leaning backward slightly to take in more of Sam. “Yeah?” He asked, more than said making Sam’s brows fall completely, and his lips press into an unpressed line. “I mean yes! Duh, yes I still want to kiss you,” the archangel quickly recovered, returning to the space he had filled before. 

The hunter’s lips crooked up, bending slightly for the archangel to claim his lips. Gabriel hummed into the soft press, fingers gripping the cuffs of Sam’s rolled-up sleeves. The taller man's fingers turned upwards gripping Gabriel’s forearms, parted his lips, and invited Gabriel closer. The archangel smiled into the exchange, tongue diving past the brunette’s lips as his hands climbed higher. His fingers twisted to hold onto the lapels of Sam’s overshirt keeping him close. Sam released a muffled sound against the archangel's exploring tongue, hands sliding to Gabriel’s waist for support against the archangel’s grip. He deepened the kiss as he wrapped his body around the shorter vessel, before dipping his head back to break the tender exchange. Gabriel released a groan of disappointment as he let Sam pull back for air. 

Sam hummed, leaning forward to press a kiss to his lips. “We have to finish helping them,” the hunter said in a chuckled breath against his lips. 

The archangel swallowed, not wanting this to change what they had grown into. “Yeah,” he grumbled, dragging his fingers across Sam's throat before moving higher to cup his cheek. 

“I know,” he hummed, stealing another kiss. “We will.” He sighed, dragging his thumb across Sam’s bottom lip, unable to help but return the brunette's dimpled smile. Gabriel didn’t look away from his fingers as he dragged them over Sam’s smiling lips. “We’re still on for movie night, right?” He questioned, worried about the friendship he had come to cherish. 

“Of course,” Sam nodded, hearing the archangel’s subtext and sharing the worry. He offered another smile, pressing his face to the celestial's hand before he heaved a sigh. “But, not if we don’t finish the spell,” the hunter continued, nipping at Gabriel’s fingers before pulling from his reach. “After we’re done we could set it up in my room instead of the den,” he suggested turning back to the items they had. “Dean and Cas aren't supposed to be back for a few hours.” 

Gabriel hummed watching as Sam made himself busy with the list. “The day I say no to your bed is the day the sun flickers out, Sam-I-Am,” Gabriel hummed, knocking his shoulder against Sam’s side with a bounce of his eyebrow, drinking in the other’s laugh. 

“You're ridiculous.”

For the fake fic ask game

[solrika]

A snippet of conversation between Cole and Jack, post-recall. Implied r76 and spuriken, but it's not the focus.

~

Jack wakes up with a startle, and Cole barely manages to dodge his flailing arm. Later, Jack will blame the lack of a connecting strike on his headache, the empty bottles rolling under his cot. Now, he just groans, wishing he was still dreaming. 

“Good morning to you, too.” Cole glances at the afternoon sun inching across the floor. “Well. For a given value of morning.”

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“I had some time off from babysitting.” Toeing at an empty bottle, Cole adds, “You look like shit.” 

Jack feels like shit, and the aggressive cheerfulness that Cole is radiating doesn’t help. “Do you do this to Ga–Reyes, too?” 

“Nah, he’s not as dramatic as you are–” a blatant lie, if Jack’s ever heard one, “--not as fun to bother. And besides, he pops in on his own.”

Jack stares. “He pops in?”

Cole shrugs. “At first I was worried–thinking he was gonna play la lechuza to get back at you–but you care more about chasing a ghost than watching over the kids. They’re not interesting to you, so he doesn’t care.” Cole’s lips quirk in a painful mirror of Gabriel’s mocking smile. “Guess your days of helping the new recruits are over, huh, Morrison?”

“They have you, don’t they?” Jack spits, rubbing at his pounding head. Rolling upright, he adds, “Cassidy, what the fuck do you want?”

“Maybe I just want to visit.” Cole makes a show of looking around the dusty room. “Genji was right. Should’ve brought a housewarming gift.” He kicks at the nearest cot leg, and it nearly goes out from under Jack’s ass. “Shit’s downright depressing.” 

Rolling his eyes, Jack heaves himself upright. “So you’re just here to bother me.” His clothes need washing, but he ignores the stink and pulls on his shirt from last night. Gabriel would have a fit, but, well, Gabriel’s not here to object anyway. 

“Eh.” A little hand wiggle. “Someone’s gotta make sure you’re still alive.” 

“I’ve got Ana.”

“She’s going to lose patience with you soon.” The mocking smile turns sharp enough to cut. “Reyes was the only one who could put up with your shit, after all.” 

Jack’s fingers tighten on his pistol hard enough the casing creaks. “If you’re just going to fucking needle me–” 

A derisive snort. Cole rummages in his pockets, and comes up with a datadrive painted a cheery purple. Waggling it like a tempting treat, he says, “If you can pull your head out of your ass long enough to help out Sojourn while I chase my own leads, I got something nice for you.”

Eying the drive like it’ll bite, Jack mutters, “Ask Genji. Or Reinhardt.”

Rolling his eyes, Cole says, “Reinhardt needs the most babysitting out of all of them. And Genji’s coming with me. As if you don’t know.”

The headache is already burning away, but it doesn’t stop the mean curl of Jack’s lips. Now it’s his turn to be cutting, and he replies, “I didn’t, actually. I thought he was with that omnic monk now. Wanted someone more introspective–”

Cole just rolls his eyes, and waggles the drive harder. “Off your game, old man.”  

Jack was tired of this game before it even started. He makes a grab for the drive, but Cole twists out of the way with Gabriel’s prenatural grace. “Ah, ah. It’s a trade, Jackie, not a gift. Gotta think of the kids first.”

The words burn. As they’re meant to–all of Gabe’s old anger steeped in new offense, and filtered through a cowboy-shaped lens. 

“I don’t owe you anything,” Jack scrapes out, watching the drive. They both know he could take it in a true fight, his strength enough to leave Cole with a shattered forearm and fingers. They also both know there’s no way Jack could face crippling Gabriel’s favorite student.  “I don’t owe them anything.” 

Cole blows out an exasperated breath, and at least this time the movement is all his own. “Try again.” 

“Fine.” Jack throws up his arms. “Fine!” 

“Thankya kindly.” Cole bows, does something with his hands that flourish the drive back out of sight. “And you’ll get that once I’m back.” 

This time, Jack considers just taking the damn thing a little more seriously. “That wasn’t the deal.”

Cole’s smile reminds him of a coyote. “I know better than to let you weasel your way back to this hole, Morrison.” Dusting off his hands, he adds, “The kids are waiting for you in Gibraltar. Be seeing you in a couple weeks.” Executing a perfect parade turn, he starts for the door. 

“That’s it?” Jack asks his retreating back, incredulous. “That’s fucking it?”

“Of course not,” Cole throws over his shoulder. “I’m leaving some tea for Ana.”

“I hate you,” Jack snarls, and begins throwing his clothes into his bag with barely-concealed aggression. 

“Right back atcha,” Cole sings, syrupy sweet, and escapes out the door.

[samwpmarleau]

fic: beware the jabberwock

whumptober day 6: regret masterlist: tumblr, ao3 Created by Dark Dimension magic, the Framework is a world all its own — which means it can be portaled to like any other.

Dr. Elias Morrow dies in an industrial accident, leaving his modest estate to his two nephews, Roberto, twenty-three, and Gabriel, twelve.

At least, that’s what Robbie gleans from snooping. Though, does it really count as snooping if it’s technically your house? It’s jarring, waking up in a bed that’s his own, yet not his own. He doesn’t recognize his bedroom, nor the rest of the house. It’s nice, nicer than his actual home, that’s for sure. There are no engine parts strewn on the kitchen table or car manuals on the bookshelf.

No, that’s not entirely true. There are car manuals — but they clearly haven’t been touched in years. On the table instead are books of concepts and blueprints way beyond his understanding, which Robbie at first assumes belong to Gabe. Then he sees the framed diploma on the wall: It’s his name on there, Caltech conferring upon him a master’s cum laude in mechanical engineering.

It makes his head spin a bit, until he remembers Gabe’s voice from long ago in quite literally another world.

How come you didn’t go back and finish school? We’re doing okay now. If you went back, maybe you could be an engineer, like Tío.

“An engineer …” he mutters to himself, running his fingers down the wooden frame.

He takes in the other photos scattered around the living room. Many are the same: Mom, Dad, Uncle Eli, him at high school football practice, Gabe at a science fair. One in particular catches his eye, however, of what appears to be his graduation. Various colored tassels hang around his neck as he rests his hand on the back of Gabe’s wheelchair. It gives him pause. He’d have thought that if Robbie — this Robbie — did go back and finish school, there’d have been no accident. That his path, and Gabe’s, would’ve been set on too different a course to end up on that same stupid road. No accident, no paralysis, no Ghost Rider.

A regular accident, then? Maybe Gabe was in the car with Mom and Dad when it crashed and survived where they didn’t. Or maybe it was the same as in the real world, except Robbie’s injuries hadn’t been fatal, so he’d had no occasion to beg the universe for help? Or was it none of those things and Gabe had simply been born that way?

Five minutes he’s been in this world and he’s already frustrated. It’s disconcerting to not know even the most basic of facts about his life.

The Rider had warned him about this, that this world could be alluring. Distracting. In fact, this was the exact reason the Rider didn’t want him to go into this dimension in the first place, seeing as how he could not follow. The constructed world was nearly perfect — but it existed in a reality all its own without a hell for a demon to attach itself to. At least, the Rider was not willing to gamble his own existence by jumping into a dimension that might swallow him whole.

Robbie himself, however, mortal and moping, the Rider was reasonably sure could survive if he were careful.

Which had felt so utterly patronizing that Robbie had walked through the portal mid-warning. Besides, it wasn’t like he could just not come. He wasn’t about to let a robot armed with the Darkhold have free rein over the people he’d come to consider … well, not friends, really, but coworkers. Allies.

The crux of it all is that regardless of what the intrepid S.H.I.E.L.D. team is or isn’t, they’re people he’s honor-bound to rescue. Maybe they can do it themselves — but he’s not about to take the chance that they can’t, that they’ll be trapped in this place forever under Aida’s thumb to do with what she will. Robbie knows all too well what it is to be someone’s puppet. If he can spare others that fate, he’ll do it no matter how strange or dangerous the circumstances.

The smell of smoke hitting his nose brings him out of his ruminations. He looks down to see it seeping from beneath his fingers, the wooden picture frame beginning to char. He drops it in alarm, glass shattering upon impact with the floor.

Robbie stares at his hands. Though there’s no active flame, he can feel the power running through his veins. It’s not exactly the same as he’s used to, like drinking off-brand Coke, but it’s close enough.

He doesn’t understand. The Rider had said this world couldn’t accommodate him, and Robbie doesn’t feel him inside his head, so how …?

Robbie jumps at the sound of a phone ringing. He reaches into his pocket for his cell, and finds nothing. The ring is coming from the kitchen wall — an honest-to-god landline. No bells or whistles, not even caller ID. Tabling the power mystery for later, he picks up the handset.

“Hello?”

“Robbie! Glad I caught you. You headed into work yet?”

He doesn’t remotely recognize the voice, nor does he have the slightest clue where “work” is. “Uh, no, not yet. What do you need?”

“One of the guys called out, some family emergency, and half the DMV metro has decided to have car troubles today. Mind filling in for old times’ sake?”

“Fill in as … a mechanic?”

“You said if I ever needed a favor —”

“Yeah, that’s fine, just …”

He has no idea if it’s fine. For all he knows, wherever he works would cap him for missing a day. But that’s a bridge he’ll cross when he gets to it. Fixing up some rides would not only be a welcome return to form but give him ample opportunity to learn some more about this place.

“Can you give me that address again?” he asks.

“You serious?”

“Moved on to bigger and better things, man, what can I say?”

After some indignation, the guy on the other end does give him the address. Robbie manages to find a map of D.C. in his office and charts the route to the shop.

The Charger sitting pretty in his avatar’s garage is a sight for sore eyes. Apart from having apparently been retrofitted with seatbelts, she looks the same. Sounds and feels the same, too, as he starts her up and eases out onto the road. While using a portal for transportation has its novelty and convenience, there’s nothing quite like the rough purr of his baby’s engine.

The only thing that mildly dampens his enjoyment is the realization that if ever there were a time to obey the speed limit, it’d be now. With the Rider, having a lead foot never mattered — the power that imbued the Charger with regenerative capabilities and pyrokinesis also prevented cops from noticing her speed.

Now, he’s got no demon to fend off law enforcement, and although he doesn’t know what the penalty here is for speeding, he assumes it’s more than a fine. Which is heat he definitely doesn’t need. He’s got a mission to carry out.

The farther he drives, the more he decides speed isn’t the issue anyway. It’s the surroundings. Everything is gray and uniform, with HYDRA symbols stamped on every available surface. Electronic highway signs tell people to report their neighbors. Dilapidated neighborhoods are a dime a dozen. Even the few people that actually walk the streets look miserable. The only familiar thing about any of it is that his car gets double-takes of admiration. He wonders if his avatar had gotten special dispensation to keep it. There is very little variety in the other cars he passes.

He walks into the shop with what he hopes exudes confidence, even as he takes in with disgust all the HYDRA propaganda posters littered on the walls. Required reading, no doubt.

“Reyes!” comes a voice across the shop. Its owner Robbie recognizes in person no more than he did over the phone. With a proffered uniform, the man greets, “Appreciate the help. Got a full slate for you as soon as you get dressed.”

Robbie nods, then heads into the back room to change. He hopes he can get the lay of the land quick enough to point him in the direction of how to find the team. If HYDRA’s running the show, he doubts S.H.I.E.L.D. will be up and running out in the open, which means it’ll take precious time to figure out where they are.

—

“A flat tire?” Robbie blinks in bewilderment as Phone Man — whom Robbie has since learned is named Perry — tells him the reason for pulling him from an accident repair job. “That’s what you’re sending me out on a call for?”

“What, you’re too good for it?” says Perry, frazzled and perturbed. “The call came from a HYDRA number, it’s top priority.”

If Robbie never hears the word HYDRA again after all this is over, it’ll be too damn soon.

“All right, I’m going, I’m going.”

The address leads him to a deserted stretch of highway outside the city, which makes him a little apprehensive. It doesn’t seem like a normal place a HYDRA agent would be. Then again, even after several hours of being in the shop conversing with both ex-work buddies and customers alike, the biggest things he’s gathered are that this world well and truly sucks, and that HYDRA has a habit of popping up when it’s most inconvenient for its citizens.

The vehicle is easy to spot, at least, halfway onto the road’s narrow shoulder and predictably emblazoned with HYDRA’s ostentatious sigil. A young woman leans against the side, looking annoyed rather than concerned or in trouble. Maybe he can delay, ask her some questions. While it’s been a good decade since he’s had reason to charm anyone, he can give it a shot.

“Need some help, ma’am?” he asks cheerily as he approaches with a toolbox. “We got a … call …”

He stares at the woman, stunned. She stares back at him, equally so. Because it’s not just a woman, it’s Daisy. She looks different, hair past her shoulders with a drab wardrobe and distinctly less eyeliner, but it’s unmistakably her. He’d know her anywhere.

“Robbie?”

She recognizes him, too, then. Thank Christ.

Dryly, he replies, “Surprise.”

“Wait … you’re you? Real world you?”

“Yeah, I’m me. Mostly.”

“How? And what do you mean ‘mostly’?”

“Long story. Short version, I’m here to help.”

“That’s the best news I’ve heard in months,” Daisy says with a tired yet brilliant smile. “God, I can’t wait to see Aida’s ass get lit up.”

If only.

“About that … Ghost Rider’s not in the building.”

“Excuse me?”

“Part of that long story. I was able to portal to this dimension, but he couldn’t.”

Daisy grimaces. “Not gonna lie, it would’ve been useful to have that firepower.”

“Well,” Robbie says, trying not to be offended, “there is this.”

He focuses on the frenetic energy that sluices through his every cell down to the very marrow of his bones, then watches with satisfaction as a ball of fire forms in his palm.

Daisy’s eyes go wide. “Okay, hold up. You’re an Inhuman?”

“I think so.” Robbie extinguishes the fireball with a sizzle. “It’s probably the closest Aida could get to what I actually am.”

“Nice of her to activate your powers. That makes one of us.”

“You can’t quake anything here?”

“Nope. I still have the gene, but I haven’t gone through terrigenesis. Guess Aida didn’t bother making sure you hadn’t since that showdown with Eli seemed pretty final.”

As shameful as the feeling is, he can’t help but be a little happy that he’s here. It may not be a physical realm, and it may be run by the worst humanity has to offer, but he’s as close to being on Earth and his own person as he’s likely ever to be again. No fire except that which he can make himself. No brimstone or unholy screams or blood, guts, and ichor staining his hands. He tries not to think about the fact that once the team gets out of this place and Aida is dealt with, he’ll be bound once more for hell.

This world, Earth, Daisy, it’s all fleeting.

Focusing on the woman in front of him and not the after, he asks, “did you really call for a flat tire? You don’t know how to change one yourself?”

“Of course I know how to change one. There’s no spare in this thing, and the car called the closest mechanic. It was either try to get somewhere on foot or wait for a tow.”

“And your plan was what? Steal the truck?”

“Maybe. I don’t need powers to commit grand theft auto.” Daisy glances down at the hand that a few moments ago had held a fireball. “How’d you get yours anyway?”

“No idea. I think the accident Gabe and I were in still happened, but it’s not like I could Google it. Aida really went full fascist, didn’t she?”

“Absolute power, blah blah blah. So, are we gonna go or what?”

“Go? Go where?”

Daisy grins. “How’d you like to become an enemy of the state?”

[sarifinasnightmare]

Seeking Warmth

Rating: For Everyone

Summary: Bucky is usually the one waking Sarah up with his nightmares. Tonight it's the other way around.

Warning: Deals with grief over a loved one.

Prompt: Tell me a story...I don't know any stories.

Sarah woke up gasping with tears streaming down her face. Quickly she tried to stifle her sobs, but it was too late, Bucky was already awake and staring down at her with great concern.

“What happened?” He asked, checking her over. Usually, it was him that woke up, sweaty and stressed from his nightmares. Tonight, it was the other way around and honestly, he didn’t really care for it.

The strong, indomitable part of herself wanted to wipe her tears away and assure him that it was just a nightmare and she was fine, but her heart was still aching and the tears weren’t stopping, so she just let herself weep.

“Sarah?” He asked more gently as he reached out to rest his hand over the one she hand laying over her chest.

“I…” she tried to gather her thoughts, but it was tough as the painful memory clung to her. “…I begged him not to leave me…I know I should’ve…go in peace…but I was in so much…pain…”

Understanding, Bucky reached over and pulled her into his arms as the bitter memory of her husband’s death overwhelmed her. From what he’d been told, Cassius had put off seeing the doctor until the pain had become unbearable and by then the diagnosis came too late. He’d died so quickly that it had left his beloved Sarah grief stricken and in utter shock. Like him, the trauma never truly healed, but was set aside only to emerge like a ghost in the night.

“Just cry it out.” He soothed her gently. “I’m here.”

“He told me he was sorry. He wished he had done things different.” She sighed. “I had to pretend that I was strong, that I could handle doing it on my own just to put him at ease.” She shook her head. “I wasn’t…I was so…angry…and scared…he promised to grow old with me and he…lied.”

“You still angry?” He asked curiously.

For a moment she said nothing, just buried her face against his soft blue shirt. “Maybe bitter. I mean, all of this could’ve been avoided and he’d still be here watching our boys grow, helping me with the house, the business…I wouldn’t have this hole…”

“It’s because I asked about marriage isn’t it? You’re afraid that I’m going to leave you like your husband did.”

They had been dating for years now and Bucky was completely invested in Sarah, Cass and AJ. He had broached the topic to her expecting some excitement, but instead had received a timid response begging him to let her think about it.

Sarah felt fresh tears of frustration spill out. “I want to say yes. I’m aching to say yes, but the memories hurt so much. Bucky, I love you, I do, please believe me.”

He kissed her precious face and squeezed her tight against him. “I know you love me. I’m so lucky that you love me and I love you so much that sometimes I can’t see straight.”

“How can you love someone whose too scared to get married again?”

He sighed, staring down at her sad brown eyes and kissed her forehead. “I have so much baggage and so do you. I pushed too soon and I’m sorry for that. You and the boys are all that I need, and I shouldn’t need a ring and a paper to confirm it.”

“You deserve it, Bucky. After everything, you deserve to get exactly what you want.” She insisted.

 “I got what I want. I’m not mad, promise.” He smiled warmly at her. “Please don’t cry.”

It was still too raw, and she sighed. “Make me forget…Tell me a story.”

Bucky frowned a little. “I don’t know any stories.”

Now she frowned. “Was it all so miserable for you back then? You had no happy moments?”

“I mean no, but so much is a blur…I do remember my childhood and days during the war.” Suddenly the corner of his lips lifted. “I just remembered.”

“What?”

“It was during the war, and I was with my unit. The weather was so cold, the coldest I’d ever felt in my life and we were all freezing our asses off. Many of us huddled together sharing blankets. Gabe was always warm blooded, so he was fairing slightly better and was trying to sleep. Jim was a popsicle and had rested against Gabe to get some warmth. Dum Dum noticed the cuddle fest and decided to start telling this dirty story about him and some girl he met at a bar. It was just getting good when all of sudden Gabe flipped out on Jim and was like yelling, Hell no, Jim, what the hell! and Dum Dum was laughing hysterically. It took me a minute to realize that Jim really liked the story and Gabe felt it.”

Sarah snorted then giggled, making Bucky grin triumphantly.

“They’re all a bunch of idiots, but they were great guys. I miss them.” He added, soothing away a lingering tear from her cheek. “I can tell you more. I remember one time with Pinkerton, a girl and a tank.”

“Maybe later.” Sarah smiled faintly. “Where did you met girls during a war. I imagined it was all fighting.”

“Well when Steve joined us we got a little more down time and there were a lot of cute nurses and secretaries.”

“Any caught your eye?” She pressed her cheek against his hand, finding comfort in his warmth.

“A few, but none like you.” He admitted before kissing her nose.

“You don’t have to say that. I bet they were beautiful with their red lipstick and fitted uniforms.”

“Well yeah but they’re still not you. I love you.”

Her heart swelled and her smile grew stronger. “I love you too. Hold me tight. I don’t want to feel alone.”

“I’m here.” He promised, clutching her to him as he pulled the sheets to cover them both. “And I’m not going anywhere.”

Soothed, Sarah drifted off, confident that Bucky would keep the nightmares at bay.

[pregnantsecondo]

how does one get into ghost Lore..

what i know so far

im.. pretty sure they arent brothers?

theres one of them who ISNT ghoulish looking. i think hes a gargoyle

is the makeup canon or are they like, drag? is it rude to aknowledge they arent skeletons?

why are they skeletons if the bands name is ghost?

how did this happen

regards, gabe

Hi. Funniest ask in the world. Let me explain.

Papa I (Primo), Papa II (Secondo), Papa III (Terzo), and Papa IV/Cardinal Copia are all brothers. Their father is Papa Nihil and Copia's mother is Sister Imperator.

Not sure what you mean "isn't ghoulish looking" Perhaps you're talking about Cardinal Copia who doesn't have the Papa Makeup.

Its makeup. I guess it's like drag. I think of it like drag. But they aren't actual skeletons. There is a ghost in the lore but it's Nihil.

Idfk why it's called Ghost. There's a ghost. He can shart. Here is the YouTube playlist of the chapters that have a good amount of lore. As for the lore not addressed...well...I just picked that up from being on Tumblr. Mostly through grainy videos and gif sets and theory posts.

[keyblade-knights-blog]

Introducing Tamiel

"What was with the shouting?? That's it! I'm coming in!" Both the Dreamer and Gabriel jump as that voice gives it's final warning, something on the other side turning the door knob. Gabriel looks into the mirror and quickly shushes the alien figure in it. "Don't say anything, I don't want her to worry. Let ME do the talking." ... A moment later, the alien reflection vanishes and Gabriel's is left in it's place. At the same time, the whispers of strange thought quiet in his head.

And when the door opens, a new figure walks in. A young girl about the robot boy's age. Where the boy wore a simple cap to hide most of his hair however, this one let her wiry but somehow full head of blonde hair, dressed in reds similar to the young man, and decked out in steam punk looking gear here and there as well. "Pfft, what's taking so long lazy bum~?" Gabe lets out a fond sigh. "Good Morning Tamiel."

Tamiel? .... Huh. And Gabriel. For whatever reason, the Dreamer was starting to pick up a theme here. "It's Tammy, Gabby! Tammy!" The girl puffs out her cheeks, and the motion looks so fluid and so fleshy, that the dreamer briefly forgets, in spite of the copius amounts of evidence provided, that this girl is made of metal. "You really gotta stop using the full name thing. The only one 'round here who should be saying 'Gabriel' or 'Tamiel' should be dad." The robotic fem huffs and looks around. "BUT, more importantly, I heard shouting. Is everything alright?" "OH UH THAT. UH... Let's see uh...." This poor kid starts to very clearly flounder, and it becomes apparent to the Dreamer that Gabriel has never lied even once in his entire life. There isn't even a single idea tinging up in his brain that could plausibly explain the shout. ... So that's when the Dreamer comes in. "OH RIGHT! Meh, it wasn't anything too serious... Just uh.. Just somehow got grime in a place I didn't know I had." The excuse he fires out? It was clear the Dreamer had been INTENDING to imitate Gabe's voice with a simple impression... And yet it almost FEELS like he had briefly taken control of Gabriel's voice box a few times in there. ... He could TELL Gabe wanted to glare at him. But Tamiel just titters. "Oh is THAT all~? Well I guess that'll teach you not to jump into Ole Mr. Grinder's dump again~." Gabriel takes over from there, "I JUMPED IN TO GET BACK THAT PART YOU DROPPED!!" Ah, the exasperation of a flustered brother~. And the mischievous tittering of a younger sister. It was honestly cute~. "Well WHATEVER Mr. gross~." Tammy continues giggling, fit to burst for a good few seconds before she regains control of herself. "Dad's ready if you are! He wants to give us both a check up before we rush out to do work around town!" With that said, she backs up to the door. "Don't keep us waiting anymore! You've already slept in by a lot!" And with that? Tamiel takes her leave out the door, leaving Gabriel alone in his room. ".... How did you do that?" Gabriel shoots out, sounding terrified at even the POTENTIAL answers. "... Well, honestly, I was just trying to do an impression of you to help you out... And for whatever reason it just... Came out as your voice-?" Gabriel turns to the mirror to give it a flat look.

The young dreamer in the mirror just blushes a bit. "I'm sorry! I swear I didn't mean to take over your voice box too~..." ... Gabriel just lets out a groan. "WHATEVER... Well, hopefully my Dad'll be able to make heads or tails of you." His smile becomes wide and victorious. "He's the smartest guy on the Spaceport and he knows everything! I'm sure he can make sense of it~!" ... Spaceport? "Hold on... Gabriel right? Where... Exactly are we?" That causes the robot to look confused. "Wait... You don't know? I thought you might've been some kind of ghost or somethin... But you don't even know that? Weird..." He grumbles as he walks to the window. "Well whatever. You're currently on-" Then he opens the window. -------------------------------------------- ... And Words? Words do not even begin to describe the sight that awaits outside that window.

-------------------- Title Card Reference: [ https://youtu.be/tWDv7ZQ9v8A?si=tzSedq2bRZ4OAOOv ]

[mystic-sunni]

Hello Poptropica community I have arrived to post something that I was meant to post a while back but forgot until now...sorry about that hehe. Anyways today we have Poptropica's top ten moments that don't get talked about as much as they should. There's going to be spoilers about the islands and characters also a few honorable mentions that just didn't hit the top ten mark. With all that said and done let us begin with number 10.

10. Skeletons

So as our character explores several islands and many strange places we often stumble upon a spooky site. What's the spooky site you maybe asking well I'm talking about skeletons. We have seen them on several islands for example 24 Carrot Island and also we fight off skeletons in Red Baroness side quest before Rumpelstiltskin got her. Anyways this does indicate a bit of a surprising site to some people and I'm surprised nobody talked about it much on here.

9. Player's parents

So some of us og Poptropica players remember when we would create our character we would spawn from a box right? Well apparently we do in fact have parents or at least a mom because on Night Watch Island when we find chocolate soap we not only learn our player has a potty mouth but also we have a mom. Pretty surprising that isn't mentioned barely at all.

8. Mya missing her family (MOTM Books)

I honestly haven't read any of the books because I didn't have the money to get them but someone on here actually showed how Mya during the story was starting to break down because all she wanted was to go home to her parents. Sorry I can't talk much about this since I don't know a lot about it.

7. The space dog (Lunar Colony Island)

If you played Lunar Colony Island you might've found a few pictures that had some astronauts and a dog with them. But not a lot is mentioned about the dog. Did it leave space or did something happen?

6. "Are you looking for something?" (Ghost Story Island)

The first time Poptropica had some voice acting if we ignore Pop English heh...Anyways I am personally surprised by how nobody said much about the interaction before.

5. Octavian (MOTM)

For those like me who just played the island for the book series most of us might have believed that Octavian was just a evil adult but if you had read the books it turns out there's a lot more lore to him than we knew from the island.

4. Famous last words from Joe Puddy (Zomberry Island)

So apparently Joe Puddy was in a Poptropica comic and his last words before becoming a Zomberry were "I said I would." Most likely meaning that he was going to at least attempt to keep his promise to his wife to eat the fruit most likely but I'm not to sure.

3. What happens to "Honest" Gabe?

Most of us who have played or seen Monster Carnival Island playthrough have some sort of idea of who I'm talking about. By the time our player gets to the island Gabe is nowhere to be found. Where is he and what has actually happened to him?

2. Missing Kids Posters (24 Carrot Island)

So the missing kids that Dr.Hare has been kidnapped for around 6 months for some of them before we arrived to the island. Also the state of the island was quite concerning when we arrived.

Now before we hit number 1 let's me make a few honorable mentions!

1. Merlin's sacrifice (Astroknights Island)

2. Our player getting framed several times for crimes we didn't commit.

3. Almost becoming a trophy (Survival Island)

Now that the honorable mentions are said let's get to number 1!

1. Nearly drowning (Cryptids Island)

For most of us og poptropica players we might remember this scene where we were riding the waves with our kite board thing and then we see Gretchen on her boat. She immediately sets our kite device on fire and leaves us to nearly drown if Harold Mews didn't save us with his helicopter. So the reason this is number 1 in my opinion is because I see people talk about Gretchen but nobody really talks about how she nearly kills us.

Anyways that's my top 10 Poptropica moments that aren't talked about that much as they should be. Thanks for reading and huge thank you to those who sent in suggestions!

[richincolor]

New Releases for the Week of 2/27/23

Chaos Theory by Nic Stone Crown Books for Young Readers

DETACHED Since Shelbi enrolled at Windward Academy as a senior and won’t be there very long, she hasn’t bothered making friends. What her classmates don’t know about her can’t be used to hurt her–you know, like it did at her last school.

WASTED Andy Criddle is not okay. At all. He’s had far too much to drink. Again. Which is bad. And things are about to get worse.

When Shelbi sees Andy at his lowest, she can relate. So she doesn’t resist reaching out. And there’s no doubt their connection has them both seeing stars . . . but the closer they get, the more the past threatens to pull their universes apart.

#1 New York Times bestselling author Nic Stone delivers a tour de force about living with grief, prioritizing mental health, and finding love amid the chaos.

The Wicked Bargain by Gabe Cole Novoa Random House

On Mar León-de la Rosa’s 16th birthday, el Diablo comes calling. Mar is a transmasculine nonbinary teen pirate hiding a magical ability to manipulate fire and ice. But their magic isn’t enough to reverse a wicked bargain made by their father and now el Diablo has come to collect his payment: the soul of Mar’s father and the entire crew of their ship.

When Mar is miraculously rescued by the sole remaining pirate crew in the Caribbean, el Diablo returns to give them a choice: give up your soul to save your father by the Harvest Moon or never see him again. The task is impossible–Mar refuses to make a bargain and there’s no way their magic is any match for el Diablo. Then, Mar finds the most unlikely allies: Bas, an infuriatingly arrogant and handsome pirate — and the captain’s son; and Dami, a genderfluid demonio whose motives are never quite clear. For the first time in their life, Mar may have the courage to use their magic. It could be their only redemption — or it could mean certain death. — Cover image and summary via Goodreads

Delicious Monsters by Liselle Sambury Margaret K. McElderry Books

Daisy sees dead people—something impossible to forget in bustling, ghost-packed Toronto. She usually manages to deal with her unwanted ability, but she’s completely unprepared to be dumped by her boyfriend. So when her mother inherits a secluded mansion in northern Ontario where she spent her childhood summers, Daisy jumps at the chance to escape. But the house is nothing like Daisy expects, and she begins to realize that her experience with the supernatural might be no match for her mother’s secrets, nor what lurks within these walls…

A decade later, Brittney is desperate to get out from under the thumb of her abusive mother, a bestselling author who claims her stay at “Miracle Mansion” allowed her to see the error of her ways. But Brittney knows that’s nothing but a sham. She decides the new season of her popular Haunted web series will uncover what happened to a young Black girl in the mansion ten years prior and finally expose her mother’s lies. But as she gets more wrapped up in the investigation, she’ll have to decide: if she can only bring one story to light, which one matters most—Daisy’s or her own?

As Brittney investigates the mansion in the present, Daisy’s story runs parallel in the past, both timelines propelling the girls to face the most dangerous monsters of all: those that hide in plain sight. — Cover image and summary via Goodreads

She is a Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran Bloomsbury YA

When Jade Nguyen arrives in Vietnam for a visit with her estranged father, she has one goal: survive five weeks pretending to be a happy family in the French colonial house Ba is restoring. She’s always lied to fit in, so if she’s straight enough, Vietnamese enough, American enough, she can get out with the college money he promised.

But the house has other plans. Night after night, Jade wakes up paralyzed. The walls exude a thrumming sound, while bugs leave their legs and feelers in places they don’t belong. She finds curious traces of her ancestors in the gardens they once tended. And at night Jade can’t ignore the ghost of the beautiful bride who leaves her cryptic warnings: Don’t eat.

Neither Ba nor her sweet sister Lily believe that there is anything strange happening. With help from a delinquent girl, Jade will prove this house—the home her family has always wanted—will not rest until it destroys them. Maybe, this time, she can keep her family together. As she roots out the house’s rot, she must also face the truth of who she is and who she must become to save them all. — Cover image and summary via Goodreads

The Headmaster’s List by Melissa de la Cruz Roaring Brook Press

One of them was driving. One of them was high. One of them screamed. And one of them died.

When fifteen-year-old Chris Moore is tragically killed in a car crash, Argyle Prep is full of questions. Who was at the wheel? And more importantly, who was at fault?

Eighteen-year-old Spencer Sandoval wishes she knew. As rumors swirl that her ex, Ethan, was the driver that fateful night, she can’t bring herself to defend him. And their messy breakup has nothing to do with it – she can’t remember anything from that night, not even what put her in that car with Ethan, Chris, and Tabby Hill, the new loner in school. Was it just a night out that went very wrong? And is it just a coincidence they were all part of Argyle’s esteemed honor roll, the Headmaster’s List? In a place ruled by pedigree and privilege, the answers can only come at a deadly price.

Set against the glitz and glamour of an elite LA private school, Melissa de la Cruz’s first YA thriller is an addictive mystery perfect for fans of Gossip Girl and A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder.