#(i know teeth are not TECHNICALLY bones but they are for the purposes of this joke)

[mediumgayitalian]

“Woah, hey, I wanna try.”

Nico startles at the voice, tiny bone falling from his hand and sinking back into the dirt.

“Aw.” Beat-up flip-flops slow to a stop right next to him, and Will plops himself down. He shoots a bright, too-wide smile in his direction, eyes crinkling. “Hi!”

“Hi,” Nico says warily, subtly inching away. Will, either oblivious or uncaring to his intention, just leans in closer, blue eyes watching him intently. “…What are you doing here?”

“Hanging out with you. Duh. How did you do that?” He points to Nico’s hands.

Confused, Nico re-summons to the squirrel femur, dragging up the rest of the skeleton too. It chitters to life, nosing at the sliver of bare knee out from Nico’s ripped jeans, before bounding over to Will. He doesn’t even flinch, laughing as the little thing scampers up his arm and rests in his hair. Nico’s mouth twitches.

“I don’t actually know? I guess I can do it the same way you can heal. It kind of just happens, I can’t really teach you.” He pauses, squinting. “Unless…necromancy is healing, technically. Can you do necromancy?”

Will shakes his head, wincing as one of the squirrel’s ribs gets catches a curl of his hair, tugging it as it moves. “No, the other thing. The spinny thing.” He gestures towards Nico’s hands, wiggling his own in explanation. “With the — bone.”

“Oh! Oh, that.”

Closing his eyes, Nico lays his palm flat on the packed dirt, feeling around under it. He can’t see it, exactly, but he can feel buried things the same way you might feel the air shift when someone comes in an empty room. Things take up space, and there’s a record of that you can feel. Nico’s ability just extends underground, and bones, especially, are like someone entering a room loudly. He’s directed to them almost automatically.

He feels around until he gets pulled towards another buried dead. A mouse, this time, or at least a part of its skeleton. Nico leaves it. The bones are too small for his purposes.

He keeps searching until he finds a raccoon’s ulna — perfect. He drags it up, patient as it worms its way around rocks and through clay and even, notably, a snake’s burrow, and finally breaks through the surface, right up into his waiting palm. He taps it twice on the ground, shaking off the excess dirt, then poises it deftly in between his right middle and pointer figure.

Then, aware of Will’s intense gaze on him, he starts to fiddle with it.

So fast the movement looks fluid, he passes the thin bone along his deft fingers; in, out, in, out. He bends it under his hand back into the looped curve of his pointer finger when it reaches his pinky, starting the cycle all over again. The bone makes tiny swishing sounds as cuts through the air.

“Woah,” Will breathes, eyes wide, pupils wider. “That’s so cool.”

Nico shrugs, embarrassed. “It’s just — twirling. It’s not hard.”

“It’s like the bone is moving itself, though! That’s so sick!”

Nico has never had anyone look so — delighted at him, before, at his magic. Not that this even counts — he did this with sticks, when he was a kid, with pencils. It’s just a fidget, but Will grins at him like Nico’s turning straw into gold.

“I can — show you, if you like.”

Will cheers, scooting somehow closer. Their knees touch, and Nico has to bite down a gasp; somehow, even that touch is hot, even through his jeans he feels like he’s been shocked. His hands, too, under Will’s intensive, determined scrutiny, start to tingle.

“Extend your middle finger up, a little, like you’re trying to cross it over your pointer. No, don’t actually cross it, just — here. Let me.”

He grabs Will’s hands before he can think about it, and he regrets it; the contact makes it suddenly hard to breathe. He forces himself through it, breathing through gritted teeth, and places Will’s fingers the right way.

“Your heart rate’s way off,” Will comments. “You’re also producing an excessive amount of adrenaline and cortisol. You okay?”

Nico bites back a curse. Damn vitakinesis.

“I’m fine,” he grits out.

“If you say so.”

He rushes through the end of his explanation, practically flinging the bone in Will’s direction and throwing himself away, making sure there’s a healthy stretch of space between them when he sits back down.

“You try.”

Will shifts, eyes narrowed on the poised bone. His tongue peeks out of the corner of his mouth in focus, just barely, and Nico has to beat back his thoughts with a mental battering ram. The squirrel skeleton, still sitting on Will’s head, rattles as if laughing at him.

I’ll give myself a lobotomy. I will. Do not test me.

“I got it!”

He glances back down at Will’s cry, accidentally meeting his eyes — blue, blue, gods, they’re so blue, is that an Apollo thing? First the sunrise-coloured hair, then sky-eyes? Apollo’s eyes are brown, usually. Blue only when he feels like it. Why are Will’s so identical to the heavens, then? Why do they seem to take up half his face, they’re so constantly wide, constantly watching? Attention everywhere, all the time, like everything is worth looking at, committing to memory. They go near black, when the sun sets, they get so dark. Mirrors of the night sky. That can't be mortal.

Sure enough, the ulna weaves through Will's fingers — clumsy, stuttering, not as fluid as Nico, but the foundations are there — successfully.

"Good job."

The answering smile could light up the Earth in an eclipse. Nico feels sunburnt.

"I gotta go show off to Kayla and Austin!" Ulna tucked in his ear like a pencil, he reaches up a hand, waiting for the squirrel, despite not having an olfactory system, to sniff his palm, deem it safe, and crawl in. "Come on, Sammy. Thanks, Nico! You're the best!"

"Sure," Nico mumbles. He watches him run off, cradling the little squirrel skeleton carefully. "No problem."

A small smile pulls at his face.

#thank you to the person who sent me an entirely unrelated ask that put me on a tangent until i wrote this #pjo #percy jackson and the olympians #hoo #heroes of olympus #nico di angelo #will solace #nico di angelo & will solace #nico di angelo/will solace #solangelo #pre solangelo #pining nico di angelo #fluff #my writing #longpost #will/nico #nico/will #pjo hoo toa

[noodyl-blasstal]

Not that kind of apocalpyse!

Sometimes you might ask yourself, “What if Taakitz kissed in the historical fish castle during the zombie apocalypse?” Well I answered it.

Happy Birthday @ceilingfan5!

Read below or on Ao3

-

“There’s someone outside!” Lup shouts from her spot at the periscope.

Fuck. Of course Taako was going to have to deal with this on his watch. The trouble always waited until Magnus was busy flexing somewhere else and Merle was off doing unspeakable things in the garden. 

“Someone, or something?” He asks. He tries not to let the weariness creep into his tone, but Taako’s so tired of this bullshit. First he got called in on his first day off in weeks… months? Who fucking knows any more; then he got zombie apocalypsed; and now everyone’s trying to eat him and not in the good way. Not that there’s any chance of boning down with anyone in the near future because he’s related to, or may as well be related to, everyone he knows is currently alive - well, apart from the peppy idiots on the radio who keep advertising their ‘zombie free wonderland’, but Taako doesn’t trust easily and whatever they’re selling seems too good to be true. 

“Cha’girl said what she said.” Lup doesn’t move away, just adjusts the scope.

“People?”

“Person, singular, a guy I think.” 

“Are you definitely sure he’s people?”

“Are you definitely sure you want to keep asking me?” Lup doesn’t pull her eyes away from the periscope, but she does give him the finger. It’s artful really, her spatial awareness is a thing of wonder.

Before he can think, Taako opens his mouth to pretend to bite it off, it’s reflex as much as anything, but he closes it gently, doesn’t snap his teeth. That bit is a lot less funny than it used to be. Watching a loved one nearly get chomped will do that for you.

“Can I see?” Taako asks instead of answering, he’s not going to do anything completely out of character like admitting fault.

“Hang on…” Lup turns the scope side to side. Fuck.”

“What?”

“Shush a minute.” Lup hisses.

Ah yes, telling Taako to shush, the thing that works every time. “What’s going on?”

“Shit! Run, dude, run” She mutters.

“Lup! What’s happening?”

“Biter.” She turns the scope slowly. “Two… At the moment. I don’t know if he’s seen them.”

“Do you want Taako to…?” Taako gestures at the ladder up to the harpoon gun.

Lup stays fixed to the scope but still manages to nod. “Be ready, see if he needs it. He’s by the unfortunately shaped hill, but he’s moving fast towards the tree that looks like it’s doing a high kick.”

Taako climbs up the ladder into the ramparts and pulls the shutter back from the slightly-wider-than-intended crenellation (thanks to Magnus’ enthusiasm). He zeroes in fast with Lup’s directions. There’s definitely two of them, if not more, lurking behind the dude as he walks. Taako hopes he’s aware of them. He could be, the guy’s walking with purpose. He’s glad, Taako hates dawdlers, not least because he used to be one by choice and now he has to zoom everywhere because he’d like to keep living actually please and thank you.

“You didn’t tell me he was hot!” Taako bellows down to Lup. A crime of the highest order, frankly, it’s been a while since Taako’s had anything good to look at and he could have been looking much faster.

“You can’t see him well enough to know if he’s hot or not, he’s too far away.” Lup yells back. 

The guy turns his head in their direction. It’s a nice face, a really nice face, that he’s working with there.

“See! Hot!” Taako refuses to let her get away with this on a technicality. He knew in his bones the guy was good looking, Lup should have too. He sticks his tongue out in her direction. She might not be able to see him, but she’ll know.

“He’s coming this way.” She shouts up.

“What?” Taako looks back, using the wildly inaccurate harpoon sights that Barry was definitely getting round to fixing (it was for the best he left them alone at this point, Taako automatically adjusted for it now.) Hot boy had changed trajectory and was heading their way. “But there’s… fuck!”

Taako slides the harpoon to the side, sees the biter who was lurking on the guy’s tail. Shit. It’s close, too close. He jumps up and bellows with everything in him. “Hey, hey handsome! Watch out!” He’s too hot to die. 

They make eye contact and this is it, this is the thing they wrote about, that they sing about, that’s on the TV. It’s electric, it’s perfect, it’s… 

“Run you absolute dickhead!” Lup bellows from beside Taako. He needs to get her a bell. “Stop staring at my idiot brother and run!” She elbows Taako and mutters. “Idiot.”

The man shakes out of it and glances round in time to see the biter on his tail. Taako hears the faint “Oh fuck!” on the wind as the guy starts running. Thankfully in the direction of the drawbridge. Shit. The drawbridge.

“We need to let him in.” Taako says, urgently.

“C’mon.” Lup’s already heading for the ladder.

Taako scrambles after her, slides down the ladder, and lands in a roll. He jumps up and does the ‘tah dah!’ arms, but Lup’s already gone. That’s fine, he can appreciate his own talents, he doesn’t need adoration from the masses or anything.

Lup yanks on the lever that releases the drawbridge and the portcullis raises at speed, narwhal horns raising up to hang like as many sharp teeth. They’ve saved them all a few times.

“Go go go!!!” Taako yells, hopefully encouragingly. He’s sure not going out there, but shouting he can do.

“I’m going to get my gun.” Lup mutters.

The man’s close, really close, when the zombie lurches out from behind the tree. Not high kick tree, it would never betray Taako like that, one of the bog standard ones. One of the ones he’s going to burn down because it just killed Taako’s new boyfriend. It’s fine, he’s allowed to get ahead of himself, this dude’s going to be nothing but a ‘what if’ now.

The zombie grabs the man’s arm and tries to bite his hand, the guy twists away, punches it in the face, gives it his best shot. Of course he does, he’s got something to live for, he’s trying to survive, trying to make it to Taako. The biter grabs his ankle and drags him to the floor.

Two spears take down the other zombies before they can reach the man and join the feast.

“I can’t get a clean shot.” Lup says mournfully beside him. She glances round, then walks carefully forward, spear gun raised.

“You have to stop doing that.” Taako hisses and steps along beside her. He’s trying to have a moment here, to give his dying future husband the reverence he deserves. They were going to adopt so many cats. It would have been beautiful. He’s not in the mood to be spooked.

“Counterpoint, you have to work on your awareness.” Lup nudges him.

“No need when I have you, sister mine! Taako’s all good.” He walks carefully beside her, remembers to step over the crack in the resin flagstones left after The Incident.

Lup does the face she does when he pretends he’s not training (he refuses to give up the possibility of being blase about the zombies, even if he’s been doing endless crunches, and parkour, and whatever other nonsense Lup and Magnus insist is going to save their lives, at night when no one’s watching. Well, apart from Agnes, but if he wants Taako to ever bake the cookies he likes again he’ll stay quiet.)

They’re close enough now to see that the zombie’s still gnashing, but the guy’s clearly fighting back. Maybe he’s not a goner yet?

“Maybe we can… you know, help?” Taako glances round and can’t see any others nearby.

“He might be infected… I guess I could…” Lup’s mouth tightens into a hard line.

“No! Don’t help him dead, like, help help!” Taako steps closer gingerly. As he gets into range of grabbing and pulling the biter off, it shudders and goes still. There’s no movement underneath it either. Of course. Brilliant, fucking brilliant. “Just Taako’s luck. The first hot guy cha’boy sees since the apocalypse apocalypsed, and he immediately gets himself chomped.”

Lup pats him sympathetically on the shoulder. “Next time ‘Ko”

“You think I’m hot?” The man asks, rolling the un-undead corpse unceremoniously to the side.

“Fuck!” Lup and Taako jump back as one.

“Stay there!” Lup aims the spear gun squarely at his head. “Did you get bit?”

“You have to tell us if you did, otherwise it’s entrapment.” Taako adds. Because why shouldn’t he have a little fun, honestly. He winks, so the guy knows Taako’s not going to be waving any spears at him… well unless he plays his cards right…

“Who enforces zombie entrapment law?” Hotboy asks as if he genuinely cares, as if he’s passionate about legal rights and wants to make sure the lawyer provided is up to the job. He probably does care. It’s the end of the world and Taako meets someone who’s hot and funny and willing to play legal zombism so of course Taako’s also going to have to put him down or, more likely, watch while Lup does it and try not to cry about it until he’s alone in bed later.

“You’re not allowed to distract us with legalese, that’s also entrapment, probably.” Taako adds authoritatively.

The man  smiles brightly in his direction. “I didn’t get bit.”

“Prove it.” Lup’s aim doesn’t waiver.

The man sighs. “My name’s Kravitz.”

“What does that prove?” Lup makes a ‘get on with it’ gesture with the gun.

“I usually like to make sure a guy knows my name before I strip in front of him.” He doesn’t break eye contact with Taako.

“Taako.” Taaok stares right back. He’s not a looking people in the eyes guy, but this? This is competitive looking, and if there’s anything Taako loves it’s winning.

“I’m Lup and this is gross, break it up right now!” Lup sounds genuinely disgusted. Good, honestly. He’s been living with her and Barold since this all started, he deserves at least a little revenge for his trouble.

“But you said…” Kravitz’s hands still on his leather jacket’s zip.

“I said prove you didn’t get bit. Like, show me your hands and arms and the bits that were actually anywhere near the dead guy. The medic can fully assess you after that.”

“Fine.” He shows her his hands and his collar bones, and his arms, they’re nice arms. “But what if I got bitten earlier?” 

“Did you?” Taako asks quickly.

“No. But I could have been and you wouldn’t know. Someone should check.” Kravitz glances at Taako.

“Cha’boy will do it. You know, to save you having to, Lu.”

“Uh huh, sure, yeah, a brave sacrifice. Now move it, both of you, I want to get the drawbridge up and the portcullis down.” Lup finally lowers the spear gun.

“Portcullis… So… uh… I did want to ask.” Kravitz begins gingerly as he walks across the bridge and into the castle.

“Uh huh.” Taako tries to look like he couldn’t possibly imagine what Kravitz is about to ask.

“I couldn’t help but notice…” Kravitz says gently, carefully.

“You noticed something?” Lup asks sweetly, as she begins to turn the crank.

“That you’re in a castle.” Kravitz finishes as the portcullis falls into place and the drawbridge is lifted.

“It’s not a castle!” Lup and Taako say as one.

“It’s not a castle?” Kravitz asks, warily eyeing the fish themed portcullis.

“It’s so much more, Kraveroo. Welcome to SeaBlaster, we’ve got fish, and the things you use to squish… them.” Taako does his best business smile, the one that they paid him slightly above minimum wage for, and does an adequate job of jazz hands (those didn’t come cheap.)

“It’s not really squishing though, is it?” Kravitz asks, like that’s the only problem with anything that’s happening right now.

“Hey, hey Kravitz, just to check, the only problem you have with the aquari-museum we now live in is the tagline not quite making sense because most of this stuff is used to stab and not squish?” 

“No!” Kravitz says indignantly. “Whales also aren’t fish. There’s no way the harpoon you were at was used on anything that wasn’t a marine mammal!” 

Lup snorts.

Taako groans. “You’ll get on well with Angles.”

“Who’s Angles?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“But I…”

“Ssssh.” Taako pats Kravitz’s shoulder reassuringly. Plenty of time for that.

There’s a long beat of silence as Lup begins to stride back to the staff room. Or, well, the common room as they call it these days, it’s homier, apparently.

Taako inclines his head and Kravitz follows obediently. Good to know.

“So how long have you been here?” Kravitz asks, falling into step beside him.

“This doesn’t seem fair. You’ve already had a load of questions.” Taako looks at Kravitz and smiles, just to be sure he knows it’s a joke.

“You can ask some things.” Kravitz looks positively overjoyed at the prospect.

“How’d you kill it?” Taako asks. He didn’t hear a gun or anything.

“Er…” There’s a long pause.

Taako stops dead. “Kravitz?”

“No wait, it’s not weird.”

“If you have to say it’s not weird, Taako’s inclined to think it’s gonna be weird.”

“But I said it wasn’t!” Kravitz protests, as if that has ever worked.

“People are asking a lot of questions that my “the way I killed the zombie wasn’t weird” tshirt already answered… C’mon, just tell Taako.”

“Staked it.” Kravitz mutters.

“You fucking what now?” 

“I staked it.” Kravitz over-ennunciates, spitefully, Taako loves it. Can they keep him forever?

“My question stands.”

“I used a stake. I staked it.” Kravitz shrugs nonchalantly like that’s not completely ridiculous. “You use what very much looks like a historical whaling harpoon!” He adds, as if that’s relevant right now. He’s right though.

“You just…” Taako mimes stabbing Kravitz through the heart. It’s slightly more dramatic than it needs to be, sure, but how often does a guy get to go full Dracula-murder?

“Obviously not, that doesn’t work. I…” Kravitz steps towards him and mimes stabbing Taako through the eye. It brings them close, nearly touching close.

“Show cha’boy again? I missed it.” Taako leans forward.

Kravitz looks confused for a second, there’s a beat where Taako thinks he’s pushed his luck too far. Before he can apologise though, Kravitz is cradling the back of Taako’s head with one hand.

“Like this.” He says softly, barely a whisper, as he fuels whatever is crackling between them and brings his fake-stake wielding hand towards Taako’s eye.

“Urgh, quit it!” Lup yells back at them and flings the door to the common room open. “Taako’s got a…” the door swings blessedly shut before she can finish her sentence, but Taako can hear the chorus of questions immediately rumble up in response.

“Er…  you wanna shower? Before you, you know, meet the gang?” Taako gestures expansively at the door which is currently rattling. He can just about hear Magnus’ protests and mentally thanks Lup (or whoever it is) preventing him from barrelling into the hallway, hugging Kravitz to death and asking him a bajillion questions before without giving him a chance to answer. It’d still be better than Merle appearing though.

“You have one?” Kravitz sounds suspicious.

“Are you trying to say Taako smells?” Taako tries not to be offended, but it should be obvious to anyone he has a shower. The apocalypse has never looked so good!

“No!” Kravitz’s indignation is reassuring at least. “I just… It’s…” He peters out.

“Been a while?” Taako asks, giving Kravitz a deeply un-subtle once over.

“Not for lack of wanting.” Kravitz replies, and the want is palpable.

“Taako can definitely help you out there, handsome. Don’t you worry. If Kravitz wants, Kravitz can get.” Taako hopes he’s inflected exactly enough emphasis to be sure Kravitz knows which page they’re on. The sex page of the sex book. “It’s this way.” Taako leads Kravitz down the hallway and towards the stone staircase to the aquarium. They figured the geothermal heat would be good for bedroom temperature as well as the tropical fish. It was a solid bet. “So, how’d you end up with stakes?”

“Is that a fish tank?” Kravitz’s attention is immediately gone. He’s pressed to the tank and marvelling at the clownfish darting around and Taako hates each and every one of them because Kravitz should be looking at him instead.

“Taako wasn’t kidding about the ‘aquari’ bit in the welcome spiel, my dude. We’ve got fish, we’ve got historical fishing weaponry, and all of that comes with a ridiculous part fibreglass, part stone, largely fish themed castle. Buy now for the low low price of spending the rest of forever here, or at least until the bugs eat all the zombies to death or whatever.”

“I’m sold!” Kravitz says, worryingly enthusiastically, as he presses himself to the fish tank viewing window. It’s disgustingly adorable and Taako hates himself for the way his stomach clenches in the ‘going over a bumpy bit of road and loving it’ way.

“So… how’d you get the stake?” Taako refuses to be deterred from finding out.

“Whittled it.” Kravitz says too quickly. 

“Why?” Taako asks. There’s something here, there’s a string to pull at and he’s gonna.

“You know, end of the world.” Kravitz flaps his hand dismissively.

“C’mon. You can tell me, the shower’s just over here.” Taako opens the door to his quarters. Well. His ‘office’. They all just picked their favourite and took over. Taako’s is set a bit further away from the others and had a bathroom next door which is now an ensuite, because there’s not a chance in hell anyone’s coming back for this place after, and if they do they’re gonna be owed so much back pay that it wouldn’t be worth the counter-suit for the wages to try and make him repair the wall.

“Here’s the bathroom.” Taako nudges open the door and wishes that he’d spent literally any time cleaning his room in the last mmm… day…s…week… It’s fine. It’s the end of the world, you don’t have to be neat and tidy when humanity’s clinging on by a thread. Not that he was before, but Kravitz doesn’t need to know that. “And here’s a fresh towel.” He shoves one at Kravitz. 

“This smells like mint?” Kravitz says like Taako’s magic. Taako could get used to this level of adoration.

“It’s antimicrobial.” Taako says, because apparently apocalypse flirting is letting the guy you like know your towels don’t have diseases.

“But how did you get it?”

“Hydroponics.” 

“How did you…” Kravitz starts to ask. 

“Not questions for Taako. I deal in fish and harpoons, you’ll need Merle for garden questions and I can guarantee that he’ll answer with more detail than you want and you’ll regret it as much as everyone else does when they ask.

“I don’t mind getting to learn new thing.” Kravitz sounds worryingly interested.

“It’s not about the plants, well it is… but not, you know… in the way you want… it’s not about the things you want to…” Taako squinches his face up remembering The Onion Incident. He hasn’t cooked with them since.

“You’re making it sound like it’s a sex thing.” Kravitz laughs heartily, poor sweet fool. Taako’s silence clearly speaks volumes. “Wait… you mean…?”

“Anyway, here’s the shower.” Taako says quick, loud, and brokering no further vegetable sex questions. He refuses to let Merle ruin this for him. He points at it, just in case Kravitz somehow missed the cubicle, and starts to leave.

“Wait!” Kravitz says quickly. “You needed to check me out!” Kravitz grabs Taako’s arm as he turns away. “I mean… you know, for safety.”

“Well, if you insist.” Taako steps inside and closes the door behind him. “For safety, of course.” 

“Of course.” Kravitz says smooth as butter. Then immediately fumbles his zip in a rush to get his jacket off.

“You okay there, Kemosabe?” Taako tries not to laugh.

“I’m fine!” Kravitz’s voice has the slightest hint of desperation. “Absolutely fine. I’m trying to get naked in front of the most handsome man I think I’ve possibly ever laid eyes on, which is, may I say, an achievement at the end of the world as we know it, I knew guys who had access to, you know, stuff.”

“Ah, stuff.” Taako says wisely, trying very hard not to flick his hair dramatically and show Kravitz just how correct he is.

“Stuff.” Kravitz continues. Tugging at his zip again. “... and now I can’t get out of…” he gives a dramatic wiggle “...this stupid…”

“Let me.” Taako steps forward. “Taako can look after you.” He looks Kravitz dead in the eyes as he slides the zip down slowly, and thanks fate that it actually works. He probably could have dragged the jacket up over Kravitz’s head, but this way is so much better, this way means Kravitz is looking at him like he wants to eat him - in the good way. The good good way.

“Thank you.” Kravitz says, close, very close. Close enough for Taako to breathe him in and…

“Wait… shit. Hang on. Is that <i>garlic</i>???” Taako immediately abandons all thought of getting off, because if this is what he thinks…

“Er… I can expl…”

Taako pats at Kravitz’s chest. “There!” He thrusts his hand into the jacket’s inside pocket, hopes he’s right, he’s rewarded with a tight white bulb.

Garlic! It had been months, months, since Lucretia overwatered his stash and killed the last hope for flavour. He still hadn’t forgiven her. “I could kiss you.”

“You can if you want.” Kravitz looks so earnest, so hopeful, that Taako does, presses his lips firmly to Kravitz’s, brokering no room for confusion. He wants this, he means this. It’s intended as a quick thing, a temptation, but the way Kravitz melts into it though, the way he pushes himself forward into Taako, it’s delicious, it’s intoxicating, it’s… deeply uncomfortable.

Taako pulls back. “How much stuff have you got in here?” He flicks the jacket, then his hands are on the buttons of Kravitz’s shirt, working away, before Kravitz can reply. “Why is this cross so massive? It really digs in.” Taako lifts the ridiculously sized, heavy, solid silver cross that’s hanging round Kravitz’s neck and lets it drop again. Maybe he loves Jesus? Although he also seems pretty into boning before marriage… hmm.

“Er…”

Taako pulls Kravitz’s jacket open to reveal a series of inside pockets full of stakes. “How many of these did you make?”

“I… uh… Look, Taako.”

Taako reaches into the external chest pocket and pulls out a vial of clear liquid. “Small water bottle, my guy. Couldn’t find anything else to drink from? Glass doesn’t seem practical.” Taako narrows his eyes. 

“It’s…” Kravitz looks panicked. Taako should have known he was too good to be true. “It’s good for the environment…” 

Taako raises an eyebrow at him.

“...and also It’s a back up.” Kravitz smiles, winningly. It doesn’t work.

“Why do you have so many of them?” Taako pats at his pockets again. “Wait, is this more garlic?” It is… four more bulbs. Kravitz leans in as if he thinks Taako’s going to kiss him again. He does, obviously, because garlic at the end of the world is garlic at the end of the world, and it would be rude not to.

It’s distracting, the kissing, he definitely means to ask more questions, but also Kravitz is so handsome, and so… there. It’s been a long time. Taako pushes the jacket off Kravitz’s shoulders, it lands, loudly, but means it’s much more comfortable this time when Kravitz pushes his chest against Taako’s. It’s only natural that Taako slides his arm to Kravitz’s back, pulling him closer. The noise Kravitz makes when he does it tells Taako he’s just as desperate for this, for connection, for the press of bodies, for hot breath and moaning in a context unrelated to someone who’s recently dead and trying to bite your face off.

Taako drops his hand lower… “Kravitz, what the fuck?” Taako steps back, holding the stake tucked into his back pocket.

Kravitz sighs, heavily. “If I tell you, can we keep doing that?” He gestures between them in what Taako assumes is supposed to be an approximation of the heavy petting he’d very much like to get back to.

Taako raises an eyebrow.

“It’s not weird!” Kravitz protests too much.

“We’ve talked about this. Remember? You’re making it sound weird again.”

Kravitz squinches his face up, then shrugs. “I’m a vampire hunter.”

“What?” Taako doesn’t even know where to start with this one. Usually he’s got words, he’s full of them, they’re happening without checking in with him first, but he’s bereft, devoid, left wanting. In multiple ways. Is being unhinged a deal breaker for him? Taako’s unhinged. At least the guy’s prepared, dedicated to his imaginary craft.

“So…I told you…” Kravitz’s face is inches from his again.

Taako’s tempted. Sorely tempted. But he should probably definitely ask at least two more questions so Lup doesn’t shout at him later.

He places his hand firmly on Kravitz’s chest and definitely doesn’t cop a feel in the process. “You’re a vampire hunter?” That’s one. Nearly back to hot-boy-make-out-session followed by maybe-moving-things-to-the-shower-if-it-goes-well time.

“Yes.”

“And you think vampires are real?” Taako asks as gently as possible.

Kravitz steps back this time. “Hang on. Wait. We’re in a zombie apocalypse!”

“Vampires aren’t zombies.” Taako says with confidence, there’s not too much he knows about zombies short of the whole ‘they don’t get back up if you harpoon them in the head’ thing, but that’s one of the other facts he’s got.

“Obviously not.” Kravitz says, like Taako’s stating the obvious.

There’s a moment of intense eye contact. Kravitz nods as if what he’s just said was in some way conclusive, point proving, debate winning.

“Exactly.” Taako says. Because yeah, zombies aren’t vampires. “Wrong kind of apocalypse.”

“I didn’t think it was a vampire apocalypse.” Kravitz looks indignant as if Taako’s being ridiculous here. “I’m familiar enough with biting to know what’s gone wrong here.” He gestures expansively to the whole of everything.

“Sure…” Taako’s lost again.

“I was a vampire hunter before the zombies happened.” Kravitz says, as if that’s the same as Taako’s Underwater Fun-gineer role. Taako’s clearly still looking at him blankly because he adds. “You can’t believe in zombies and not vampires! I bet you thought biters weren’t real before this too.” Kravitz had a point, a good one. Fine, Taako can believe all kinds of things for him.

“Did that… pay well?” There. Okay, maybe now he believes in vampires because a handsome man said they were real, but he asked three questions, three! Lup definitely can’t shout at him.

Kravitz levels him with a confused look. “I had a day job, Taako. It’s just that I also do this… did this. They’ve fucked off since, well…”

There’s a long pause while Taako processes. “So, just to clarify, you’re… you’re a vampire hunter without any vampires in a zombie apocalypse?” Taako tries really hard to keep his voice straight, he does. He’s unsuccessful. Wildly unsuccessful judging by the look on Kravitz’s face. It’s positively stony.

Taako tries desperately to choke the laughter back. “Just… one more time.” His voice is thicker than normal, but he thinks he just about manages to play it off as regular. “One more.” He adds.

“No.” Kravitz’s bottom lip does something dangerously close to pouting. Taako wants to pull it between his teeth, but he should probably ease off anything biting related right now.

“Go on.” Taako bats his eyelashes, he may as well go for broke.

Kravitz’s nose twitches. “Fine, fine! I’m a vampire hunter in a zombie apocalypse and all the vampires fucked off.” He says huffily.

Taako’s mouth quivers as he presses his lips together, but he can’t stop the snort that escapes. That’s it, there’s no hope, he’s howling, tears streaming down his face, doubled over and wheezing. “S… Sorry.” He gasps out. “I… Fuck. No… no vampires… zombies… wrong… wrong thing.”

“I guess…” Kravitz says slowly. “I guess when you think about it that way…” He lets out a small chuckle. “... it’s… it’s pretty funny.” And then Kravitz is laughing too and they’re leaning against each other, propping each other up as the ridiculousness washes over them. It’s stupid. It’s perfect. Taako’s going to keep him, he can definitely stay.

The laughter subsides, eventually. One of them stops and then they set each other off laughing again over and over again. Taako wants to pin the memory of it to his wall so he can look at it whenever he wants.

“Were there many, you know, before?” Taako’s curious. Why can’t vampires exist?

“Yes. Yes there were.” Kravitz’s face is stony again.

“But less when you…” Taako mimes staking Kravitz through the heart dramatically.

“Yes… Yes. Less when I…” Kravitz grabs Taako by the thighs, pins him to the wall, and pretends to drive a stake into him. 

Taako’s not unwrapping his legs from Kravitz’s waist any time soon. “Do it this way often?” He looks down at Kravitz and smiles as coyly as he can manage, which he’s assuming isn’t very.

Kravitz noses Taako’s chin. “Not really.” He presses a line of kisses across his jaw. “I was just showing off.”

“Speaking of showing.” Taako says, drawing his hands over Kravitz’s biceps, strong, good, very good. “I believe I was supposed to be checking you out.”

Kravitz looks puzzled for a second before he catches on. “Of course. Yes. Very important health and safety process. I’ll have to put you down.”

“I’ll live. Probably.” Taako sighs. Then decides he’s at least entitled to some aerial kisses while he’s up here. “Actually, wait no, hang on.” 

It’s good, it’s very good. It takes a while before Kravitz starts getting wobbly and Taako starts worrying about them collapsing into a pile of horny limbs because there’s no easy way to explain those injuries. He taps Kravitz’s back. “Okay. C’mon. Inspection time. I’ll warn you, I’m very thorough.”

Kravitz groans, and lets him down. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

Taako helps him out of the rest of his shirt, stops to give him some more kisses when another bulb of garlic rolls out. He helps to shuffle all the stakes onto the jacket so they stop rolling around the floor. He helps kiss Kravitz’s collar bones when they look lonely.

“Taako.” Kravitz hesitates, hands on the button of his fly.

“Uh huh?” Taako doesn’t even pretend to look him in the eye, surely they’re past that point now.

“I was thinking…” 

“Dangerous thing to do.” Taako lifts his eyes from Kravitz’s stomach and tries to focus on something that isn’t thinking about running his hands over it, grazing his nails through the hair there, kissing his way downwards.

“I have another safety concern.” He says, so earnestly.

“Uh huh?”

“How do I know you haven’t been bitten?” The corner of Kravitz’s mouth lifts as his eyebrows raise in challenge.

“You make a compelling point, handsome, I guess you’d better inspect me too.” Taako’s top is off before he’s finished talking.

#Happy birthday Larissa!!!! #Everyone go say happy birthday to them #Also - I cannot tell you how much fun I had thinking of this stupid world #But tell me I'm wrong - would Taako not use a historical whaling harpoon in the zombie apocalpyse? #Would Merle not be desperately figuring out how to grow onions to fuck? #Did you see that Kravitz has a lead on some vampires - he just doesn't know it yet! #TAZ Fic #Taz #TAZ Balance #Taakitz #Taako #Kravitz #Lup #Noodyl Writes #Zombie apocalypse AU #Why wouldn't there be an aquari-museum in a half resin half brick castle?

[jynrso]

bring the fire

this isn't technically for rebelcaptain smut month, since it doesn't really follow any of the prompts, but when i saw that it was happening, i was like "oh! i've got an unwritten piece of rc smut i should finish!" and here we are!

title from "heat stroke" by black math -- which is a song i have in my jyn playlist and the instrumental part is absolutely something i can see playing in the background of one of her fight scenes

read it on ao3!

Hoth is cold. Too damn cold. So much so that Jyn would rather be on Tatooine right now, her skin melting off from the heat, bounty on her head be damned. 

She’s never done well in the cold. Maybe it’s because she’d been born in prison on an ice planet, the chill having snuck into her bones when she’d come into the world and hasn’t left her since. Old wounds ache underneath her skin, her hands stiff and sore, and she sinks further into the cocoon of blankets, only her eyes exposed above them. 

Without having to say anything, she knows that Cassian can feel the weight of her stare against his back as he gets ready for bed. She huffs out an annoyed breath when he has the audacity to wink at her as he shrugs off his parka painstakingly slow; she’d accuse him of doing it on purpose if she hadn’t seen for herself how cold affects him, too. 

With a stifled groan, he finally slips beneath the covers and Jyn moves to him immediately, curling up against his side and getting as close as she possibly can before he’s even settled. After taking a few seconds to shift until he’s in a comfortable position, he wraps his arms around her so she’s properly slotted in front of him. 

And since she’s a kind fucking person, she waits before sticking her feet (ice cold even with socks on) on his shins, leeching off of his warmth. 

Cassian curses and she grins to herself. But to his credit, he doesn’t pull away from her; eventually, her shivering subsides and she hums in contentment, her body feeling lighter than it has all day now that she’s properly warm. 

“You really don’t like the cold, do you,” he observes quietly, breaking the silence between them. It’s not a question. 

“Nice use of your spy skills,” she replies sourly. Pain pulses between her temples. It shouldn’t surprise her that he’s able to read her so easily, especially not when she’s made no attempt to hide her dislike of Hoth, but it’s still unsettling for someone to see her so transparently. (She is still learning what it means to be loved.)   “Don’t think I haven’t noticed how often you wince when you think no one’s looking.” 

He sighs but doesn’t rise to meet her bait. Instead, he says neutrally, “I’ll have to steal some more blankets from the quartermaster, then.” 

And just like that, the annoyance inside of her deflates. Her eyes close briefly, hating how her first reaction had been to bristle rather than agree to a fact that they both know to be true. 

In a silent apology, she twists her upper body to face him properly, propping herself up on an elbow. It exposes her to the chill of the room but she’s willing to bear it for a few seconds. He frowns, mouth parting as if to ask her something, but she merely leans down and catches his lips with hers. 

It begins innocently enough but quickly grows more heated. When she breaks away to take a breath, he gently nudges her back down to the bed with her back facing his front. Then, he pulls the covers back up over her and begins to kiss her way down her jawline to her neck. 

Goosebumps break out across her skin but it’s not from the cold. When his teeth scrape against the skin underneath her ear, she shivers. 

“None of us like the cold,” he murmurs quietly. “It’s not just you.” 

She sighs, shoulders hunching inward. “I’ve never lived anywhere this cold. I hate it – it reminds me of. . .” 

Days spent in the cave on Lah’mu, cold and dark, waiting for her parents to come for her and seeing Saw instead. Nights spent curled up on the street, shivering instead of sleeping. The relentless chill of Wobani, biting into her bones no matter how much sweat she worked up each day.  

“. . .Things I’d rather forget,” she settles on finally. “Of. . .Lahmu. And the days after Saw left me. And. . .” she swallows. “Wobani.” 

Cassian hums against her skin, pulling her closer and tightening his arms around her. She tenses at first but it doesn’t feel like a cage. His grip is loose enough that she could pull away if she wants to but she doesn’t, slowly settling back against him. It feels. . .safe. 

(When’s the last time––)

“Fest was ––  is an ice planet,” he tells her, voice quiet, almost reverent. A bit of his past in exchange for what she’s given him. “I don’t remember much of it –– but it wasn’t like this. Even on the coldest days. . .” 

He trails off. She doesn’t let the silence sit for long. 

“You didn’t worry about freezing your dick off?” she cuts in smoothly. 

Her antics are rewarded with a barely-there laugh –– as good as a guffaw from someone as schooled as Cassian. She smiles to herself, hidden by where her cheek presses into the pillow, but that smile quickly turns into a sigh of pleasure when he resumes mapping out her neck with his lips. 

“It’s a good thing you’re here to keep me warm.” 

One of her eyebrows ticks upward. “You asking me to make sure your dick doesn’t freeze off, Captain?” 

“Merely observing,” he replies calmly, as if her hand isn’t already snaking between them and slipping beneath his sweater and his sleep shirt. He lets out a strained exhale when her cold fingers touch his bare abdomen, skirting over an old blaster wound. “Stars, Jyn––” 

“I could always stop,” she replies, toying with the waistband of his pants. As if in revenge, one of his hands begins to drift lower, brushing against her breast and slipping down the planes of her stomach. His featherlight touch is the last thing she wants; she arches up to try and increase the pressure but Cassian only tuts in her ear and moves away despite her groan of frustration. 

So he wants to tease? Fine. Two can play that game. 

“You know,” she says idly, barely managing to hide the breathlessness in her voice. “I was planning on jerking you off. But now I’m not going to.” 

Cassian huffs out a laugh, his breath puffing against her neck. But the way his hips grind into her backside tells her just how much her words have affected him. “You are a piece of work, Jyn Erso.” 

“Nice try, but compliments aren’t going to get you a handjob,” she replies primly. 

“Let me convince you otherwise,” he murmurs into her ear. Finally –– finally –– he slips a hand beneath her pants, his fingers just barely brushing against her clit. A shaky sigh escapes her lips, growing wetter and wetter despite his touch only ghosting against her skin. 

“Cassian,” she says threateningly, though her voice loses some of its steel when his other hand thumbs at her breast through the material of her shirt. She grinds back against him; when his hips jerk up unconsciously at her touch, letting him rut up on her. He grunts into her ear and she can only imagine how he looks right now: eyes closed, breath coming in short pants, forehead pressed–– oh. 

His index finger slips past her folds and rocks inside of her, hand twisting so his calloused thumb can rub circles around her clit. All thoughts leave her head as her hips move against him, head thrown back against the pillow and eyes closed, slowly fucking herself on his finger.

“So wet for me,” he breathes, voice gravelly. A small moan slips past her lips when his other hand slips under her shirt, squirming against him. He gets to work sucking a bruise on her neck, teeth scraping against her skin in time with the motion of his hand. 

The only sounds in the room are her quiet pants, his fingers pistoning in and out of her cunt, and his groans when she brushes against his straining cock. She grabs his arm tightly, nails digging into his skin, but the small bites of pain only seem to spur him on further. 

It doesn’t take long for him to add another finger, stretching her out around him. With her free hand, she shoves her pants and underwear further down her thighs. Then, she shifts, widening her legs so he can have better access, hooking her foot back up against his leg, and opening herself up further. 

Her underwear is soaked –– she’s dripping down his hand and onto the sheets beneath them. But at this moment, she can’t find it within herself to care about the mess. All her mind can focus on is the feeling of Cassian inside of her, how quickly he can find that one spot that quickly sends her hurtling to the edge. 

“Once we get off this planet, I’m going to take my time with you,” he tells her, voice ragged and thick with his desire. “I’ll eat you out until you’re shaking around me, until you can’t remember anything except for my name.” 

She bites her lip, eyes closed so tightly she sees stars. A curse slips off her tongue at the imagery combined with the way his fingers speed up inside of her. 

But she’s not one to let him say those kinds of things without retaliation.

 “Next time we ship out, I’m –– ah –– going to fuck you into the mattress,” she pants, tongue darting out to taste the salt on her lip. “You’ll let me do whatever I want to you, won’t you, Cassian? You’ll be so good for me ––  just like you are now .” 

The resulting moan her words receive makes the difficulty of getting them out while he’s knuckle-deep inside of her all the more worth it. The sound of it only serves to make her wetter –– and it only serves to make him speed up and increase his efforts. 

“Come on, Jyn,” he urges her, pulling her closer. His thumb passes directly over her clit and she gasps. “I know you’re close. I can feel how tight you are. Come on.” 

That’s all it takes for her to slip over the edge, her body lit up from within as his talented fingers push her over the brink. She twists, needing his lips against hers, and he meets her eagerly, swallowing down her moans as she comes. 

His hand remains on her cunt and he guides her through the aftershocks, leaving her a shivering mess in his arms. When he finally pulls free from her pants, he slowly sucks his fingers clean in his mouth, eyes darkening as he does so. 

“I’d say you’ve earned your reward,” she says breathlessly, shifting onto her back. Her body buzzes, pleasantly warm. She’s wrung out and completely sated. 

He props himself up on his elbow and bows his head to meet her lips once again, though the kiss is sweeter and less heated than before. There’s something in his eyes that she doesn’t quite recognize. “You don’t owe me anything.” 

“I want to,” she replies. “Someone’s got to keep your dick from freezing off – might as well be me, yeah?” 

He looks at her for a moment, then breaks, eyes crinkling with amusement, shaking his head. 

She shifts and gently pushes him onto his back, eager to take him apart the same way that he’d done for her. She draws the blankets over both of them and settles next to him, spitting in her hand before sliding her hand beneath his pants and moving straight for his cock. 

Cassian’s sharp intake of breath tells her that he’d expected her to tease him like he had her. Instead, she grins, sharp and feral, twisting her wrist over his hard shaft, brushing her thumb over the tip as she does so. 

“All this from just getting me off?” she asks idly, pressing herself up against his side. She nudges his chin up with her nose, giving her better access to his jaw and neck. Unlike him, she doesn’t pick a spot that he can cover up easily; she wants the whole base to know that Cassian Andor belongs to her. 

(Just as she does to him.) 

He shudders beneath her touch, his back arching up against the bed. But just as she senses he’s getting close to his release, she slows her hand, grip loosening. Just as she’d planned, he groans in disappointment, a curse leaving his lips. “Jyn.” 

She shushes him, moving to kiss him again. He surges up against her, one of his hands tangling in her hair, nails scraping against her scalp. 

“Easy, Captain,” she murmurs against his lips, knowing exactly what the use of his title does to him when he whines softly. “I’ve got you. You’re being so good for me .” 

He shakes, more so when she once again wraps her slick palm against his cock, deciding to put him out of his mercy. She increases her speed and she knows he’s close once he starts fucking up against her hand, hips moving unconsciously as he desperately chases his release. 

One of his hands grips the sheets beneath him, nails digging into the fabric. The other one reaches up, touching any part of her he can: her cheek, her neck, her breasts. “Jyn, please. . .” 

Then, in an echo of his earlier words to her, she leans forward and breathes into his ear, “Come on, Cassian. Come on.” 

That’s all it takes for him to spill over her hand, his body tense as he comes so beautifully beneath her. She strokes him lightly, coaxing more of his release out of him until he’s completely spent. But she waits until he’s watching to remove her hand from him, licking off the mess he made as she meets his heady gaze. He bites back a curse at the sight of her, eyes darkening. 

But as much as she wants to stay and wreck him further, they have an earlier meeting tomorrow morning. Reluctantly, she pulls away from him after one last kiss and slips from the bed, swearing a blue streak when her feet touch the frigid floor. 

“If I hear you laughing over there,” she threatens, nearly running to the ‘fresher to clean herself up, “I’m never jerking you off ever again.” 

To his credit, she doesn’t hear him laughing –– but that doesn’t mean he isn’t. Damned spy.

It only takes her a few seconds to wipe off her skin before she leaps back into bed. Since she’s in a charitable mood, she even brings back a cloth for Cassian –– though he’s on his own once she dives back beneath the covers. 

He, too, makes quick work with the clean-up process. Once he’s finished, he pulls her back to him, face-to-face, their limbs tangling together. With a tenderness that causes her chest to ache, he tucks the corners of the blankets around her so none of the cold air can sneak its way into her cocoon. 

Before settling back down, he kisses her forehead gently. Neither of them says anything but it passes in the air between them; she responds when she pulls him closer, arms snaking around his back and pressing her face against his heart. 

She still doesn’t like Hoth. But at least she has someone to keep her warm.

#rebelcaptain fic #rebelcaptaindaily #rebelcaptain fanfic #therebelcaptainnetwork #jyn erso/cassian andor #rogue one fic #rebelcaptain smut month #my writing

[helloescapist]

okii, i'm ready to make a request now! just a reminder tthat u don't have to do it now - your health and the other works gotta come first yknow

anyways

Request (SFW, KNY):

you know how the spider mother in rui's family was technically a child demon forced to be a "mother" to demons who were older than her?

ok well what if she was somehow saved by a fem!uppermoon!reader who took her away from the abusive spider Family? What if Reader started acting as a mother figure to her? (poor kid seriously needs a better authority figure in her life than rui lmao)

Hello, hello!

I'm so sorry for how long it has taken me to get to this request anon. You are absolutely so sweet, and I cannot thank you enough for your kindness. This was a really interesting request, and one that had me really thinking. When this season aired, it honestly... left me with all the creepy crawlies thinking about the "Spider Mother". I hope you're ready for what I have in store for you.

A Thousand Summers | Spider Mother

Word Count: 2508?

Setting: fem!uppermoon!reader x spider mother [reader acts as an adopted mother]

Content Warning(s): hints of abuse (p and s), trauma, adoption

Summary: A child you had never intended to care for, but one you would protect at the cost of your own life.

A/N: I utilized details of the yokai Ubume, alongside the character of Queen Im Hwa-ryeong from the Queen’s Umbrella (one of my absolute favorite shows by the way).

Your throat seared, scratched upon the edge of a blade. The touch of iron that threatened your taste buds, hissed out curses that brought on the infinities. The past centuries near meaningless, as the screams that shattered your teeth. Her form, so petite beneath your gaze; the horror painted on her face as delicate as rouge. The quiver of her helianthus eyes, the fading of light in her maroon x-shaped irises as her sight met your own. Run, your senses screamed. The tears that threatened to spill over, the touch of the wind through her coffee bean hair, as rare as the imports that frequented Lord Muzan’s shop. Extravagant, run, her bangs curled to the edges of her face, the ends of her hair touched upon the highs of her cheeks. Youthful in her features, a child who had witnessed far more in this life and the last than your heart could ever hope to accept. Severed from humanity, painted in blood as the strands that stained the corner of your lips.  Seared your lungs, choked upon the air that hindered your breaths, the weapon lodged upon the shreds of your flesh. Her scream that vibrated through her ears, hollowed your heart as though someone had carved the organ from your chest cavity with a ladle as if the core still served a purpose. Though it had not filtered blood in generations, it was merely ornamental throughout the decades. Brought to life only at the sight of her tears. Run, p-, the tears that touched upon her eyelashes, as her knees met the soft earth beneath her. Fragile as the day you had met her. Please, your voice only left a desperate growl caught against the edge of the nichirin blade, as vibrant as sapphires beneath the moonlight. As otherworldly as the breathing technique that had captivated your flesh, claimed your throat. The strength of the wielder scented of fresh rain as his drawn eyes revealed his resolve. Determined to claim your life, the threads of your neck bone shattered against its drawn, his muscles pushed further and further, slowly but surely, forcing its way through the last shreds of skins that clung to your life. Your nails struggling to cling to the edges of existence leaving claw marks against the metal sheath. If only for a moment longer, clinging onto the frays of hope that she would find the legs beneath her, to flee from this battleground. From the Hashira, who’s expression was as vacant as death. His hair as black as the Demon Slayer’s crow feathers, the swordsman who would claim your life, an inevitable fate that you knew there was no escape, but if only for a moment, “C—Chi-n-natsu,” your voice a mangled scratch of a yowl, as pitiful as a cat in heat as your nails gathered at the blade, beckoning her sense to return to her. Your other hand struggling to clench the umbrella in your grasp, please, please, you have to run.

              Trembled as a leaf as her x shaped irises struggled to follow your voice through the fog of her fears. The tremor of her form, petite and small, tears that struggled past doll like eyelashes, and the small whimper of a sob that spilled through her lips. Reminiscent of the night you had happened upon her, three years ago.

The moonlight flickered amongst the mountains, peeked beneath the shadow of the trees. Illuminated the glow of the yellow tinted moon, ushered the depths of the night, whispered horrors beneath the flicker of glistened silk. The stench of blood littered amongst the ground, soaked into the depths of the soil. Tarnished the once substantial grounds, ushered no signs of life within the mountains rather only welcomed death upon its playground. Bodies twisted and mutilated and disfigured, crafted into various forms. Others dismembered, and askew from their natural forms. Tattered uniforms bearing the marks of the enemy’s insignia. The occasional monstrous creature that crept across Mount Un Natagumo. Lowly lifeforms that bore little speech, useless in deciphering the situation amongst the summits. Only the occasional arachnid is capable of the basic pattern of communication. Nothing tangible, or intellectual, rather a messenger of some patchwork family. Each step that followed your ascent into the depths of the mountains only validated Lord Muzan’s frustrations. Your intrusion upon the lower kizuki no mere mistake of wandering; each step intentional announcement upon the demons that masqueraded as a family. A vision amongst the moonlight, an unusual sight upon the foliage. Long hair that reflected the era you had ailed from when the veins in your body served a purpose. A time when your heart would beat, nearly a millennium ago. The antique charms weaved carefully into your hair. Adapt at having threaded the embellishments in your luscious hair, practices that had escaped the generations that had followed kept secret in your routines. No longer to recall a time in which the weight of the many layers of kimono you bore affected you, far too accustomed to the burden. Unable to even question if it had ever been a hinderance to your movements, unaffected in the way you maneuvered your form up the mountain regardless of the steep tread. The roll of your sleeves betraying a lifetime of extravagance, though you could no longer recall such days, finding only the occasional comfort in their weight. Familiar as the movement of your body, posed amongst the thorns, the veil of midnight kissed upon the sheen of your weimao shielding your from the repulsive manifestations of a child’s loneliness ran rampant into the night. None such daring to cross your path, only hindering the delivery of your lordship’s message.

              That was until you happened upon a clearing, in which a woman adorned the marks of the lower Kizuki, the damning markings etched upon her face, the sorrow that filled her expression, the touch upon her features that beckoned you forward. The twitch of threads caught between her fingers, and at first, it was merely your intention to question where the kizuki could be found. To inquire upon his location and determine the state of matters upon the mountain—Lord Muzan was nearing his limits. His generosity for the creation of the child a whisper of pity, rumored amongst the Upper Moons. Details you rarely entertained, uninterested in the affairs of the lower ranks. They so very rarely remained in power that you had never considered committing their names to memory. Yet, when you had been introduced to the spider child, sparking a deeply buried desire, one that you could not place. Echoed faint memories of a past that resembled more of a daydream, but as the years had pass, the amusement of one so young. A child drunk on power, rampant to fabricate a family, to craft love, and trap those within his net. Desperate to cling to those around him, regardless of the cost sharing his art would damn him. Yes, you had merely intended to inquire as to how it she had come to be, your opportunity to inquire challenged by a predator that leapt from the shadows, and the eager way in which the woman greeted death. Her fingers free of the tangle of silk, eyelashes closed as though she whispered a prayer unheard by the gods, and for a shift of the years you had endured, the intrusion caught your interference. The twirl of your weimao beckoning for the drizzle of rain, illuminating an illusion as you pulled the woman’s kimono between your fingers, allowed her to dream of death, to utter the existence of the kizuki upon the mountain. Enough to send the young slayer deeper into the thicket of the trees. An illusion shattered by the startle state of your fingers touched upon a youthful cheek. The round high of her cheek distorted under the pad of your finger. The tremble of one so young, no more than a girl new to the world. New to the night. Tremoring beneath your touch, the tears that caught between her eyelashes. One so eager for death, a desperate plea that recoiled into itself. Revealed fear, and abuse in the way she dared to flinch from your grasp.

              No, the situation had been far from redeemable.

              The lower kizuki’s influence sponged from her pores beneath your own art, a tremble of bones and fragile regard.  Tears that caught on her long eyelashes, the tremble of her shoulders that curled down her spine far too willing to except a blow that you had not administered.

              And so, the young demon remained in your care. An added burden that you had not considered undertaking and yet for all your wandering had brought you, you had not the ability to push her form your care. Ushering her from the spider’s care as merely a mean’s to verify Rui’s failures. Your travels to his lordship having bonded you. The first night in which you had ushered her at an inn, further sponging the stench of the blood art that had morphed her body, manipulated her features. Matured her in ways that a child should never endure, the way her body had shuttered beneath your gentle touch, the tears that had found the corner of her eyes. Never daring to allow them to fall, far too anxious to reveal her own terror at your touch. Merely having intended to change her kimono, repulsed to see such exposure on one so young, her response leaving you only to withdraw your hand. Appraise the stutter of her voice. The occasional way her eyes found you in open defiance, ignorant of the way her body betrayed her aggression. Nor the confusion that found her large eyes upon your acceptance. Delicately folding the kimono inwards, before placing it before her. Urging her to change while you were out, your return upon wandering the gardens of the inn after a suitable amount of time, to find her curled up in the webs of a kimono that seemed nearly too big for her to shoulder. No—one in which she did not know how to adorn, the small chuckle that escaped your rouged lips. The little one before you resembling a little girl as she should, before she submitted to the well practice or your hands as you secured her belt properly. Far too aware of the bruises at her neck, nor the marks upon her thigh when she sat indignantly as children so often do.

              Nights spent at an arms’ length, though it never seemed enough. Only her curiosity gathering the better of her at times, to draw herself towards you if only to peer at the umbrella that you kept at your side. A knowing smile of a little girl who’s eyes found the embellishments from time to time. Enthralled, and perhaps dreaming of the day in which she too may wear one appropriately. Though you never revealed the way her eyes wandered to your own when she believed you ignorant.

              The night in which the fireflies fluttered amongst the summer’s breeze. A rare opportunity to enjoy her company in your own abode. One that you had garnished time after time, greeted in the way you had arrived from an upper moon’s meeting; his lordship especially temperamental at the advancement the Slayer Corps had managed in the prior weeks before dispatching Hantengu and Gyokko, and dismissing the remainder of you to await his commands. The little one, so quick to greet you. The shadow of who she once was left behind in the corners of the night. The smile she offered you as warm as one seeking praise from their mother. Tempting the touch of your hand as she beckoned you forward, wishing to share the growth of blossoms amongst the gardens. A skill she had accomplished under your care. The joy evident upon her features as her fingers found the petals of a small flower, chattering on without a care. Sharing everything the textbooks you had provided her had to share upon these specific species. The leaves of her tireless efforts tangled in a mass upon the growing tangles of her hair, oblivious as a child should be. Blissful of the care she had received, and eager to bask in your touch as you beckoned her to the veranda. Delicately obscuring locks from her face. The small touch of her hair caught against your fingers as she accepted your touch. Weary and fatigued from the chores of the day, fallen into the space upon your lap, curled up and secure. All evidence of who she had been, and what she had endured was erased from her features. “[LN], you’ll be going soon, won’t you.” The touch of her eyes, fallen to the lows of the garden, allowing your hands to continue to put aside her hair as you dusted the twigs and leaves from her mane.

              “Will you miss me?” You teased.

              “Ah, no I,” haughty at first before the uneasiness to gather into her features, “please, return home safe.”

              The small murmur of a hum as you accepted the depths of her sentiments, never openly acknowledging the way she waited for your return after each voyage. “You know, I’ve been thinking.” Allowing a gentle smile to touch upon your lips at the curious way her eyes glanced upon your own, peering up at you from your lap. “You have yet to think of a name.”

              “That,” she sighed before averting her eyes. Puffing her cheeks as though a means to pout before heaving her small breath. “I’ve no name. I-I must have, once, but…” The silence to fill the gaps, revealing the anxiety or perhaps the depths of her loss at the way her fingers clasped upon your kimono.

              Nodding only quietly, “Then perhaps, Chinatsu will do.”

“RUN,” You screamed, utilizing the remainder of your strength to frce upon your blood art. A flurry of rain that sent her reeling into the depths of the forest. The ache of your heart at the way she screamed upon your name, desperate to remain at your side. To greet death together, a fate you could never allow to come to pass. The slump of your form, and the limp regard of your nails as the blade slashed through, the Water Hashira capitalizing on your last attempt to send your child from your reach, if only to give her the chance to escape his clutches.

              The thud across the ground, and the metallic jingle of your ornaments were audible. Loud, in their revelation as was the sheath of the blade that had claimed your final moments. The touch of cold eyes that appraised you curiously, a life a millennium ago, and a child you had never carried to term, the wept of your tears, and the anguish of your final moments echoed upon your resolve as the smile that met your lips. Yes, Chinatsu. A name that uttered your wishes for a child you had claimed, a thousand summers would never be enough.

              Please, run, my love.

You can find the requested prequel here, A Thousand Dreams | Spider Mother.

#🍡tsuyospeaks #demon slayer x reader #kimetsu no yaiba x reader #spider mother

[kariachi]

Three bajillion years ago I wrote a fic touching on Mike's extra mouths.

Wasn't happy looking back, so I redid it.

~~

One by one, he counted and recounted the bones in the back of the hand, running his thumb over each in turn. There was probably a word for them, he probably could have asked and got an answer right there, but he didn’t really give a shit. What he cared about was that they all seemed to be there- there were no missing, no extra, none out of place. For all intents and purposes, it was a perfectly normal hand, more scarred than most with scratches and punctures- as its owner was prone to be once the makeup was off and you paid attention- but still just like that of anyone else who hadn’t lost a finger or something along the way.

Then, you turned it over. On instinct his thumb moved to trace the palm lines that weren’t there, ghosting over the trails they would have left on anyone else before he caught himself. It wasn’t that the palm was flat and featureless, but that its features were notably different. Subtle lines, like those leading to the thumb, radiated out from the center of the palm, where a small divot betrayed just how different this all was. Far from the most obvious sign that, whatever they might have been, a normal, non-mutant human the owner was not, but more than the likes of him ever had to deal with. Seemingly minor enough to slip by, but a trait that once one person noticed everyone else would look for forever, even if they didn’t know what was hidden underneath.

Technically, Kevin himself didn’t know for certain.

His thumb brushed against the skin to the side of the divot in a loose circle as he considered the best was to ask. A needless endeavor, it seemed, as with a huffing sigh Mike almost didn’t fidget beside him. Just slightly the divot unfurled before the resulting opening began to gape wider, wider, wider, until it took up the vast, vast majority of the palm. Looking into it was like looking into a pit, one lined with rows of large, sharp canine teeth. Each had to be a good half inch or more in length, eight to a row- as he’d guessed from the bitemarks the bastard left everywhere- and with

“Okay, I’m impressed,” Kevin said, eyes wide as he turned Mike’s hand in his own for a good view. He got quick chuckle in response. “I figured about the first set, but four? What do you use the other ones for?” Mike shrugged.

“Not for anything, to be honest. They don’t even move forward if you pull one out, they regrow where they are.” He hemmed a moment. “There was a period during the third grade I picked up chewing pencils but it didn’t last long.”

“Yeah,” Kevin snorted, “there’s some places you just don’t want splinters.”

“And in your back gums is one of them,” came the confirmation with a nod. Humming, Kevin continued his inspection. He could honestly say he’d never seen anything quite like this on anybody before. Oh, the eternal pit mouth he’d seen on one species, but Gourmand had nothing on these as far as he was concerned. It was, as he’d said, impressive.

“Does it- If you flexed your hand…?” Rolling his eyes in a way that far more amused than anything Mike did so, the mouth contorting as he did so that his frontmost teeth clicked gently against their neighbors. The other rows seemed unaffected. When he was done, he held the whole thing flat and shut his teeth together on their own. Kevin gave a low whistle.

“That’s really cool.” There wasn’t a way he couldn’t say it out loud, or judge the way Mike preened when he did. He’d grown up with few enough people honestly being impressed and positive about his powers, that he wasn’t about to withhold it from somebody else. Even if it was the local dipshit.

“They’re also venomous,” Mike said. Over the course of a long heartbeat Kevin dropped both their hands, turning to him with a creased brow and open mouth.

“Seriously?” Taking back his hand, Mike nodded. Kevin released a single ‘huh’. “I wondered how you got people falling over you like that, didn’t know if it was tied to the biting or not.”

“Why,” Mike asked, raising an eyebrow at him with a frown like he was an idiot, “would you not assume it was tied to the biting?”

“I didn’t know you, you could just like biting people,” Kevin said with a shrug. Mike glared, muttering something like ‘fucking moron’ under his breath.

“The teeth in my extra mouths are venomous,” he said slowly, “it makes creatures need to be around me.”

“Handy.” Especially when one considered his original modus operandi. Mike only gave a half nod though.

 “When you’re a teenager looking for attention and easy meals. Less so when you’re a toddler.” With an empty huff of a laugh, he shook his head. “I gained quite the reputation before I got old enough to know better.” Kevin could only nod to that.

“Didn’t we all…” There was an unfortunate tendency for people without powers to assume anyone with them was actively trying to cause trouble if they misused them, no matter how young they were at the time. Back in his hometown people had still been judging Kevin for frying a conveyor belt at the store eight years later. But, the mess that was their standing in society was a whole other topic, one that was too heavy to go into then and there. So, Kevin put a smile back on his face, tilting his chin as Mike. “So, energy powers, super strength, and you’re venomous? And I thought I was the jack of all trades around here.” A bit of tension easing away, Mike chuckled.

“You have more variety, I’ll give you that,” he said. “It’s just that my powers are better.” Snorting, Kevin tried and only just failed to scowl at him, socking him in the arm.

“I’ve kicked your ass before, Morningstar.” A flash of a smirk came in return.

“Only as many times as I’ve kicked yours-”

#fanfic #kevin levin #mike morningstar #technically he could have more than four rows but we *know of* four rows

[xiaoluclair]

☕️my unpopular opinion (fanfic related) is: lestappen are so vanilla they have never even tried the simplest of kinks! And when they do they end up crying cause "just so wrong"

Also Lando is the kinkiest of the entire grid! He absolutely gets them the most horrifying (to them) gifts for literally any occasion just to watch them try to figure out how it works or what it does!

warnings: implied/referenced smut -- implied/referenced kinks -- my writing

word count: 826

Everybody knows the drill by now. Lando, Max, Charles, and - Lando is almost three hundred percent certain - Sassy. She's eyeing them from around the flowered E on Charles's piano (Present #3 - Max couldn't handle the feeling of petals getting in the way of Charles's skin apparently), tail looped through the end of an emotion she definitely isn't feeling. Jimmy is somewhere - probably out on the balcony playing with discarded solo cups. He's a macho man. Lando might join him at some point.

"Okay." The cushions sink beside him and Lando twists to throw his feet into Max's lap. Fingers fit to the bones of his ankles, warm through the white ankle socks. "Get this over with, mate."

Max sounds about as uncasual as he can sound while trying to sound casual. Which is to say, the air is practically tripping over the trepidation. Lando grins and grins wider when he hears the footsteps.

Charles pulls to a halt by the piano seat. "Oh no."

"Oh yes," says Lando with glee. He sits up straight, sliding free of Max's fingers. With a groan, Charles drops onto the floor by Max's feet (Present #11 - the smell of cheese was simply too persistent for Charles's fragile nose).

"Okay," he says, a man readying himself for the final fatal blow of a bludgeon. Regardless, the words bite out of him in punctured monagasque sounds. "What is it?"

Lando remains, wordlessly scratching an itch behind his ear.

"Mate," says Max. "Lando."

Continuing to the edge of his jaw, Lando hums, a laugh thrashing against his teeth as he keeps his face cool. Then his nail catches on a pimple, startling a wince out of him and completely ruining the jaded vibes he was going for. Fucking puberty.

"Lando," snaps Charles.

"What?" drawls Lando. Or, what he thinks is a drawl, and not simply the impression of someone with a swollen tongue. The other two are glaring shiftily at him now, and Max even twists to look behind the couch, hand disappearing between the cushions while Charles's gropes underneath.

"Where is it?" demands Max. "Lando, where-"

"Oh my god, is it already inside?"

The laugh is torn, rather viciously, from Lando's throat.

Suddenly scandalized, Charles's groping flies to his own ass, his ears, his crotch. Max watches, a sort of horror in his features and fingers floating in the air as if unsure whether he should help or stuff his own ears to block out voices.

Lando cackles. "No, you idiot. How the hell would I manage that?"

The look Charles throws him communicates enough, palms poised around his nostrils (Present #25 - pegs are for hanging clothes only, got it).

Max arms are raised defensively when he speaks. "Is it in this room?"

"Yup," says Lando cheerfully. This is going even better than planned, to be honest. The build up - teasing, edging, whatever the word - is, as always, the best part. (Present #26 - subsequently, rings are for specific purposes only. More specifically, Not This One, Lando!)

"Is it small?" asks Max, eyes flicking around.

"Hmm ... averages would suggest no."

"Can we see it?" presses Charles, over the sounds of Max threatening averages. He's still pressing fingers to his body, as if his subconscious still hasn't stopped believing the notion Lando could somehow squeeze an entire dildo into it completely inconspicuously.

Lando nods.

"Is it yellow?"

"A bit."

"Black?"

"Uh ... technically no, but also yes?"

"What the fu-"

"White?"

"Ha, yeah."

"Green?"

"A small bit." He makes the symbol with his fingers for the hell of it. Max and Charles fit like two floating heads of aggravation in the space between his index and thumb, shared glance of exasperation flying across the fingerprints.

"Red?" asks Charles, only then Max says, "Hang on," and his face starts to twist.

Lando raises his eyebrows. "Yes?"

Squinted, wide, blinking, narrow and protruding are the five emotional states Max's expression cycles through as Lando and Charles wait. Lando enjoys it particularly. Charles just touches Max's knee, looking so anxious it's almost not funny. But then Lando remembers the reason for it and it's not funny at all.

It's hilarious.

"Max," says Charles, gaze flitting over to where Lando is getting comfortable against the arm of the couch and Lando's pretty sure it lingers. "Are you-"

"He-" is all Max manages to get out, before simply twisting Charles cheek around and waiting for the message to sink in.

To help, because he is nothing if not helpful, Lando cheerily spreads his arms as far as they will go. "Surprise!"

The twin looks of terror are priceless and do nothing to hide the heavy swallow of Max's apple, nor the sharp dip of Charles's eyes.

This, thinks Lando with a grin, is going to be great.

(Present #31 - one small step for man, one giant orgasm for- JIMMY WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING GET INSIDE BEFORE YOU CATCH A COLD-)

(*Present #31 - purge the earth of cats cockblockers.)

#xiao: writes #xiao: asks #asks: prompt #aya my beloved #this took agesss to finish lmao #but you said you like to be surprised to HA bet you weren't expecting THIS today ;P #ficlet: mv1.ln4.cl16 #norlestappen #f1 rpf

[ashenvein-gate]

A transcript for those with audio-processing difficulties:

Sooo… why don’t you tell me, sweetheart—what’s the look for?

(throaty chuckle)

Were you expecting a little more… exposed bone, maybe? Little dessicated flesh? Skinless and glistening with embalming fluids? Well… I do hope I don’t disappoint. Oh, and, uh—don’t mind the huskiness in my voice. It’s been a rough week, you know? All sorts of things, comin’ in and goin’ out of my throat.

(echoing) “What sorts?”

Why… a few experimental elixirs, some, uh, accidentally-ingested materials, and, hm, every now and again—only as dictated by necessity, of course—a… cannibalistic entree, or two.

(sultry giggle)

… but enough small talk for the moment. Let’s you and me get down to brass tacks, shall we? I want… your body.

(amused inhalation)

Now, don’t get too excited. I meant for… laboratory purposes. Though… well, I suppose if I have to do unsavory things in order to come to an amicable arrangement, I’m not above them. The arts necromantic have so many applications that so many people wouldn’t even think of.

Take… just getting a simple zombie on its feet. Oh, you could try and do every single thing with magic. Some do! They pride themselves on it, pointing at these things and saying, “oh—this is nothing but a rudimentary set of neurological processes.” It receives sound, and sight, and maybe smell if you’re feeling rich. And that’s about the extent of it: only the raw necessities, to fulfill its function. And all the rest, everything from biting to grappling to pushing you down to tear out your throat with its teeth, it’s all done by… careful calculations, instructions programmed in runes on a dead and twitching brain trapped in the box of its skull.

It’s technically impressive work, but I think it’s a lot of effort to make things boring—don’t you? When you know that you’re just looking at what amounts to a magical robot, it gets rather… stale. Me, I like to make sure that there’s just a little spark of life, corrupted, poisoned under the skin. That’s why it’s important to be able to do things like… control nerve stimulation. Firing of… basic primal instincts, in half-decayed synapses.

You feel me, cherry? I can use that to make a monstrosity with the tactile sensation and physical strength, and the impulse, to crush any living thing it gets its claws on… or…

(chuckles)

… with a person like you who can still think and feel… I don’t even have to touch you, to stir all sorts of intimate places in ways you never could’ve imagined. And if that’s really what you want, I’m willing to make an exchange. So here’s what I propose:

You sign this little piece of paper, ceding to me total control over your corpse upon your death. In exchange I promise, firstly, I will ensure your continuity of being, and I think, personally, that’s quite the prize in itself, but I understand the importance of immediate gratification.

So, if you’re really insistent… sign here… and then let’s get those clothes out of the way.

#voice acting #necromancer #seduction #audio #ashenvein gate

[sagasofazeria]

These Hearts of Fire and Stone

Another short story I wrote! Used a prompt for this one (the first paragraph), which meant I had to write in first person AND in present tense which was a fun challenge.

taglist (reply/reblog/etc to ask to be added or removed!): @talesfromaurea

content warnings: burn injuries, self-harm, violence, cursing, mentions of war and death, the apocalypse

word count: ~3700

She believes in me. She has always believed in me, in a way no one else ever has, and no one else ever will, and I’m betraying her. And the worst part? She doesn’t even know. She still thinks I deserve her faith, like I’m some sort of slightly broken saint.

I close my fist around the piece of glass, and its edges draw blood. It’s an interesting feeling, inflicting pain on purpose. It hurts, but I have to do it. There’s no choice. I grit my teeth and squeeze harder on the shard of the mirror.

As my blood drips to the floor, I feel the spell complete, and I look back up. Something else has replaced my reflection in the broken mirror, a faceless smoking cloud, its only features two eyes, bright and yellow like searchlights. Though I shouldn’t be able to, I can hear the thing hiss.

Its eyes lock onto me, clawing at me with nothing but a gaze. “Oh my, you’re an interesting one.” An engine-like hum rolls from the mirror. “ You’re trying to fight fate… to have everything at once. You want to, but you can’t, can you?”

I say nothing.

“Your world is doomed. You are doomed. And she’s the only one that can save you all.”

Smoke curls from the cracks in the mirror.

“But you… you know what that costs. And you can’t bear it.”

“No, I can’t. I’ll give you whatever it takes to save her.”

A screech like a thousand machines grinding to a halt fills the abandoned building, and the thing laughs. My heart stops in my chest, skipping one too many beats.

The smoky figure inhales, and I can practically hear it grinning. “Now she cannot die, no matter what happens. But know that there will be consequences for defying destiny.”

Footsteps sound on the street outside, echoing up through the ruins of the complex. The creature in the mirror disappears, and my own ragged reflection returns. It seems to judge me too, so I scowl at it.

“Vic, where’d you go? You finish your spell yet? We’ve gotta move, I think they’re getting closer!”

At the sound of her voice, I drop the shard I’d been clutching and kick apart the ash and rubble I’d used for the summoning.

“Vic!”

I take a deep breath. What have I done?

”Up here! I’m heading down, just hold on a sec,” I shout down, my voice echoing through the concrete bones of the building. A short climb back down the elevator shaft and I’m back on the streets of the city, where Alexei is waiting.

“Hey, wh-- wait. What happened to your hand?”

I hadn’t even realized, but as I look down I can see that my climb has only made the bleeding worse.

“Nothing, just… cut myself climbing around in there.” It wasn’t technically a lie, but it still feels gross coming out of my mouth. I’d lied a thousand times, but to her? It felt wrong.

Alexei sighs an all-too-familiar sigh, but she doesn’t seem to notice my hesitation. “You’ve gotta be more careful, Vic. I’m not gonna pretend I understand the intricacies of your magic, but still, you could be more cautious. Give it here,” she says as she grabs my hand, pulling bandages out of her bag.

“How many of those things do you have in there anyway?” I say, desperate to change the subject as I watch the bag nearly spill from the strain of all the random things she’s got stuffed in it.

“Hm. Not enough to keep up with you, if that’s what you’re wondering,” she says, gently flicking my nose. “Nah, in all honesty, I just snagged a few offa that airship we stowed away on last week. Rest’a this is just the usual scavenging stuff.” She finishes the bandage, and pauses, looking down at the wound like she’d left something important in there. “Get the feelin’ I won’t be using ‘em much after today, though.”

I close my eyes as my chest tightens. She keeps talking like this, like she’s not gonna come back.

“You don’t have to come along, you know,” she says, quieter than I’ve ever heard her before. She sounds… scared?

“It’s my choice,” I say, cutting her off before she can keep saying those terrible things. “It’s my choice, and I’m coming with you.”

She smiles, but her eyes are sad. “Thank you.”

“Don’t. If anything…” My words catch in my throat, and I’m reminded of the screech of metal. “If anything, I should be thanking you. You’re the heroic one. I’m just me.”

She sighs again. She didn’t used to sigh like that, but it’s been too long since we’ve slept in real beds, since we’ve had decent food, since we’ve woken up to the sound of something other than the sounds of distant artillery and war-magic.

“But you’re also my friend. If I’m gonna repel into the core of the planet and try to end the apocalypse with anybody, I want it to be you,” she says after a moment.

“We could still leave. Maybe try to sneak onto another airship, make for the other side of the planet. Let somebody else stop the end of the world,” I say, barely whispering. Before she speaks I already know the answer.

“No, Vic. There is no one else, we both know that. If the imperials catch us you know what’ll happen. They’re never going to give up their power, not when they can just hide away and let the rest of us take the fallout of their hubris.”

As if to underline her point, a distant boom echoes through the streets, and we share a look. They’re getting closer.

“Shit, we gotta go,” she says, taking off into the streets.

The dreary broken buildings we run past are a familiar sight now. We’ve been in the old capitol a few days, trying to get to the center, where the well to the core of the planet is. Old shattered windows and twisted husks of metal are scattered in our path, remnants from when the wars first broke out. Despite being the biggest city on the planet, it was the first to fall. Ironic.

Now, the whole city is buried in ash-colored snow. It’s like this all over the world, but especially here. Nothing lives, nothing dies, it’s just… cold. Since the fire was taken from the core, our planet’s been spiraling into an apocalyptic winter. Then resource wars, and imperials, and suffering, and now, us. The two of us, trying to fix it all on our own.

It takes a long time to reach the city center. Alex keeps just ahead of me, leading me through the maze of stone and steel. We don’t talk much. What is there to say? We’re about to try and reignite the core of a fucking planet.

It feels like a fever dream. The whole world’s fallen apart like a house of cards, and somehow I’m the one staring down a mineshaft to the center of the world with the bright idea to just go magically flip the lights back on.

The old walkways and wires still descend into the well, hanging as if frozen in a moment long past. I can see the ash-marks on the metal, and the feeling of death permeates the air: still, stale, and silent like the scaffolding all around us.

As we begin our descent into the well, I look one last time at the surface. Sickly clouds and falling snow blot out the already fading light, and Alex and I plunge into the depths. The darkness doesn’t last long, as the orange glow of hot metal begins to light the path ahead of me.

Alex turns back to me, a pained smile on her face as she super-heats her cyborg augmentations for light.

“Can you see alright Vic?”

I watch the orange heat flood the scar tissue that surrounds the metallic implants. “Yeah, I can see. You’re sure you’ll be alright?”

“I’m used to it.”

I sigh, and nod, and we keep climbing deeper. The further from the surface we get, a chill starts to settle in, and I lose all track of time. Hours or days could have passed, and we wouldn’t have known the difference.

As time wears on, the chill turns to a vicious freezing cold, and I’m practically clinging to Alexei for warmth. The icy air is accompanied by the sound of frantic and fading whirring. It’s close now.

The tunnel gets smaller and smaller and smaller, until there’s barely enough room for the two of us to climb down single file.

My cut hand still stings with every clash against the rock, but something feels… different. The next time we stop to rest, I hide my hand and unwrap the bandages just slightly to peek at the wound. I curse internally. Where the cut is, my skin is cracking away to reveal something beneath: my palm, as gray and rough as the rocky walls around me. I can hear that damn thing I summoned laughing in my head, and I know: this is the price of my deal.

I wrap my hand again, so Alex doesn’t see, and we continue ever downward. No need to worry her now, and have to lie again.

And even as I feel my hand petrifying, some small part of me, watching her glow go deeper into the well, whispers vain hopes.

Maybe she’ll survive the energy transfer.

Maybe she isn’t lying about being used to the implants, maybe they won’t actually kill her.

Maybe my deal won’t be necessary, because everything will work out.

That small voice doesn’t last long, silenced in awe and horror as I stare at the frozen core of the planet below us.

The spherical core is probably hundreds of miles across, suspended in midair at the center of a massive cavern. The millions of rusty metallic parts are either frozen solid or weakly sparking and spasming, like a malfunctioning mechanical heart for the entire world.

All the breath escapes my lungs and freezes in the air. Next to me, Alexei throws her rope down to the surface, her lips tight with finality.

“This is it. You ready?” she asks.

No.

“Yeah, ready as I’ll ever be,” I say, wishing I could lock my heart in my chest so I wouldn’t want to scream and tell her I was lying.

Alex takes a deep breath, then chuckles. “Let’s fuckin’ save the world.”

Together, we drop down to the outside of the core.

As we land on the icy metal, there’s a moment where my foot slips, and I feel myself falling, but before I can blink Alex has caught me. Wordlessly but gently, she brings me back to my feet.

She nods to me, and I focus my mind. I breathe deep once, twice, and then all of my fears rip out of my throat in the form of magic. We both step back as the rusted metal below us bends and tears away from its protective shell, revealing a heat exhaust vent plenty big enough for us to climb down into.

“Oh joy, more climbing,” I mutter.

Alex laughs quietly, then ducks into the vent. The inside of the core is a labyrinth of machinery either long gone or nearly gone, and what faint power still trickles through it wheezes like a quickly dying beast.

I have to use my magic to clear the path a few more times, and each time I can feel the petrification spreading. By the time we reach the nexus, my elbow can barely move, but Alex hasn’t noticed yet. Or doesn’t care. I know it’s not true, but I can hope it’s the second one.

Maybe it’ll lessen the sting if she never cared.

No sooner did the thought cross my mind, and then I was falling, unable to hold on to the rope as my elbow and hand refuse to move.

I cry out in shock, tumbling out of the vents and slamming to the cold metal floor of the core’s center.

My view of the nexus is instantly blocked by Alexei rushing over to me, panic written on her face. “Whoa, Vic! What happened, are you okay? How— Oh shit, your arm.”

I groan in pain. Should’ve known I wouldn’t be able to keep the secret forever.

“It’s nothing, Al, I—“

“Bullshit. Why does it look— Are you turning to stone? What the hell, Vic? What’s going on?!?”

I pull back at the anger in her voice. This is it, this is what happens.

“It doesn’t matter, I’m fine. Don’t worry about me, you have a planet to save.”

“Like hell. I couldn’t’a got here without you, I’m not just gonna stop caring. Can you walk?”

I nod.

“Then come on. Don’t make me do this alone,” she says, pulling me to my feet by my good arm and putting her arm around me. I lean in, still shivering from the freezing cold that coats the place.

A massive machine, a faint ember of a glow surrounding it, sits in the center of the spherical room, supported on all sides by metallic pillars and pistons. The entire outside of the room is coated with ice crystals that point inward like jagged hungry vulture’s beaks, but the nexus itself seems to hold some small shred of heat. A thin metal walkway connects it to where we’ve landed.

Together, Alexei and I walk up to the heart of our planet.

On the side of the nexus is a door. The vault is long since broken into, and it hangs open, revealing the port that all the energy that powered the core once flowed through. Al stares at it for a long moment. Then she closes her eyes, and her implants begin to glow hotter and hotter. Power courses along the wire inlays on her skin, and she looks me in the eyes.

“Alright, here's the plan. I’m going in there. I’m gonna lock myself in as the power source and try to restart the core. Do not pull me out.” She says, her voice eerily still.

“Al-“

“No, Vic. I gotta do this, and you gotta let me. I love you, and I’m sorry, but this is my fate,” she whispers.

Before I can argue, she steps into the chamber, and locks it from the inside, the light burning beneath her skin shining through the single window.

I run up to the door, beating on the glass, but she turns away. She clasps thick metal bands around her arms, takes a deep breath, and then places her hands into the energy port.

She screams.

Blinding heat blasts from the nexus, shooting along the walls and shattering the ice crystals. The mechanisms in the walls begin to rotate, buzzing to life as Alexei pours her own life into the core of the planet, and I’m stuck on the outside, watching. Her skin begins to smoke and melt, her face contorted in perpetual screaming. I can’t watch, but I can’t bring myself to look away for fear she’ll die as soon as I do.

My heart shatters in my chest. I keep beating on the door, crying and shouting to her even though she can’t hear me. Even my own skin begins to sear from the heat, except where it’s become stone. I can feel the very planet itself rumbling as Alexei burns. And in the back of my mind, the final thread snaps.

I drop to my knees, screaming to whichever direction I think the sky might be. “Can’t you see it’s killing her? It’s killing her, please! You swore! You swore she wouldn’t die! Uphold our bargain! Save her, dammit!”

The words leave my mouth, and all around me the mechanical heart of the planet grinds to a halt, an eerily familiar screech. Yet still, light cascades from the nexus. Summoning up any magic I can, I rip the door from its hinges and am met by another blast of heat.

Alexei’s skin is still smoking, but her metal implants lie cool and her eyes lack their glow. She desperately reaches for the energy port, but nothing happens. “What? I- how? Is… it’s not enough…” she growls, voice coarse and laced heavily with pain. I reach forward to grab her, pull her away, anything to save her, when the nexus explodes.

Thick smoke and shards of metal fill the air, and we’re thrown back from the center with the force of a massive bomb.

We land together, but before I can stand, Alexei shoves me away, desperately running back towards the ruined nexus. “No, no, no! What the hell did you do?!?” she cries, whirling around on me, a different kind of firein her eyes now.

“I- I can’t lose you. I saw you in there and I couldn’t take it and I had to get you out,” I say, rambling now.

“Fuck’s sake, I just said not to do that, Vic! And that still doesn’t tell me what exactly just happened— oh no. Your whole arm is stone now. Does that have something to do with it?”

She’s right, and I can feel it spreading to my chest. I nod, ashamed, but then I see it: her hands are stone too.

All my shame gone for the moment, I stand up, rushing to her. “No. NO.” I turn to yell into the smoke. “This is my punishment, not hers! She’s supposed to live! This is my curse!”

In the smoking wreckage, two searchlight eyes appear. “That was not our deal. I claimed only that she would never die, not that she would always live.”

“You—“

“You made the deal,” it laughs. “This is your fault. Now, you’ll both be stone forever, on a dead planet you sacrificed just to fail to save your only friend.”

“Vic. What the hell is that?”

I can’t speak, my heart sinking as I realize my terrible mistake.

“Vic. What. did. you. do?”

I try to respond, but nothing’s making sense.

”SHE DENIED YOU YOUR FATE,” booms a deep monotone voice from behind us.

Alex grabs their ears, looking at me. “Is this you too?”

Tears streak down my face as I shake my head, slowly turning to see a massive ethereal face made entirely of machines and gears.

“I AM THE CHOSEN OF DESTINY HERSELF. I AM FATE. AND YOU HAVE DENIED ME, HUMAN.” As the face speaks, the machinery around them grinds, glows and sparks. “BECAUSE OF YOU, YOUR FRIEND WILL BECOME STONE ALONGSIDE YOU, RATHER THAN BE CONSUMED BY FIRE, BUT YOUR WHOLE PLANET WILL DIE. SUCH IS THE COST.���

“No, wait, there’s got to be another way—“

“THERE IS NONE. I AM FATE. MY WORD IS THE FUTURE. YOU NOW FACE THE REPERCUSSIONS OF YOUR OWN FOOLISH TRANSGRESSION. WALLOW IN IT. SUFFER IN IT. BECOME STONE IN IT. IT MATTERS NOT. THE DECISION HAS BEEN MADE.”

Enraged, I lash out with magic at the smoke-shrouded demon as well as the face of Fate, but they both seem to ignore me.

“DEFY ME ALL YOU WISH, IT WILL NOT CHANGE WHAT HAPPENS NOW.”

I have no words, so I just scream at them and fall to my knees.

The demon laughs, smoke curling into every corner of the room, and Fate seems to reel back from it before dissipating. The smoke burns my eyes and throat, but I can’t make myself move.

I don’t even register Alex picking me up and climbing out of the smoke-filled nexus, out of the core, and back to the well. Everything’s blurring together. I was willing to sacrifice the world, but I was supposed to take the punishment, not her. Somewhere along the way, we find a cave, and Alex sets me down, her own arms already nearly petrified.

My breaths are shaky, and I can barely look at her. I wonder if my lungs are turning to stone too. In my mind, I can’t stop repeating the question: What have I done?

“Alexei, I—“

“I forgive you.”

“What?”

“I forgive you,” she says again, meeting my eyes, and she’s smiling that soft pained smile again.

I’m still crying, my ash-gray skin cracking as my whole body shakes, the rumbling of the destruction of the planet’s core surrounding us.

“How can you say that? I ruined everything and you still love me? How? I’ve doomed the whole damn planet and you’re still here lookin’ at me like I’m the victim! I’ve killed us all, can't you see??”

“I can see just fine. I know why you did it. And I get it. You couldn’t let go, so you… broke the world,” she sighs, exhaustion and resignation heavy in her voice.

“I… I didn’t mean to.”

“It’s okay. I can’t guarantee I wouldn’t have done the same thing.” She pauses for a long time, staring at the mouth of our little cave. “Maybe… maybe someone will find us. Find a different way to still save everyone.”

“And spite Fate herself?” I ask weakly.

“You did it. Why can’t they?”

She sits next to me against the stone of the cave. Slowly, she puts her hand on my cheek, and it’s warm, the only thing here that is. I lean into it, still choking on my sobs. “I’m so, so, sorry,” I manage to say through the tears.

“Shh. There’s nothing to say now. What’s done is done.”

She starts to hug me, but I pull away. “I-“

She chuckles weakly. “What did I say about shutting up? If we’re gonna watch the world die, at least hold me?”

“But it’s my fault, I’ve failed you and—“

“—and I’ve already forgiven you. Please.”

So I shut my eyes, wrap my stony arms around her, and bury my head into her shoulder, and she does the same. We never really feel the onset of the ice, because our bodies turn to immovable rock long before the planet’s final breath.

•••

Thousands, maybe even millions of years later, humans descend from the stars again, rediscovering this distant planet. They will uncover the ruins, and they will rebuild, and they will dig. And somewhere deep within the planet, they will find two embracing statues, miraculously untouched by the whims of time, crystalline tears still frozen on their faces.

#short story #my miscellaneous writing #not story #(not my main story anyway) #These Hearts of Fire and Stone #me when i wrote my last short story: wow this is kinda dark I wasn’t expecting to write a tragedy today #me when i got this idea: I’ll fuckin do it again #thanks for reading!

[i-lovethatforme]

since nwh happens and I’m a mess I wonder if you could make a ned & MJ first xmas with Peter since the ending of the film . Maybe with a jealous peter for mj since they are technically not together now (im crying) and with a fluffy tone? hahaha aaah I need them to be together 😭

day ten: baby please come home

The snow only sticks to his suit in certain places, the sheen on the blue material acting as a waterproof barrier so he doesn't get cold as quickly.

It doesn't matter though, he's been swinging around aimlessly long enough that the chill has seeped through to his bones. It's not like he can't go to his apartment - he can. There's just no one there and it's Christmas day and he would rather freeze on top of a building than spend the day alone.

Peter actively avoids thinking about the people in his life he could still see if he gathered to courage to go and talk to them. So he took a sandwich and some flowers to May and told her about how he's almost done with his GED. He's still unsure about college but at least now he can think about it.

He heard footsteps in the distance and he knew they were Happy's so he leapt into a tree, swinging away before Happy saw him. So now he's sitting on a rooftop in the dark, desperately trying not to think about his friends. Ned will be in the Philippines but he would sit on facetime with him if he asked - even though he only knows him from the coffee shop.

MJ is in the city, probably wrapped in a warm jumper as she helps her little sister opens gifts. Probably. Not that he can see her from where he's perched on the roof that would be creepy. God, he didn't know he could miss someone so much. But whenever he goes into the coffee shop she's talking to Ned about some guy she likes and he can't mess up her life again - not when she's happy. Not when she's safe.

Peter leans back on the roof, his head resting against a low brick wall as he thinks about what he would have gotten her for Christmas if he didn't ruin everything. Probably a book and maybe some art supplies and almost definitely a necklace that isn't broken because he would be allowed to get her jewellery because she was his girlfriend.

"Hey, Spidey," someone whisper shouts and it sounds like MJ but he just saw her. Either way, he spins so fast in shock he falls from the roof, barely sending out a web in time to stop him from getting a broken nose. It's not his grandest entrance, hanging upside down in the alley but it'll have to do because if he stays like this it seems like something he did on purpose.

"You okay?" she laughs, stepping into his view from the darkness and she's so beautiful up close. She's beautiful anywhere but she has his beanie on she stole from him and her curls are peaking out the edges and her nose is already pink from the few moments she's been outside and he loves her so much he might die.

"Yeah," he coughs, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand. "I meant to do that."

"Oh sure," she says, rubbing her lips together, then, "nerd."

"Are you okay? Do you need help?"

"No, I mean yes - I'm fine. I don't need help," she stutters out and she's so cute when she's flustered.

"I got you something," she says, pulling her lip between her teeth as she hands him an envelope.

"What?" he asks, the shock so evident in his voice he's not sure why he bothered trying to cover it. She rolls her eyes and he almost blurts out that he's Peter Parker the weirdo from the coffee shop and he's dangerously in love with her.

"I just wanted you to have something, you know, for saving the city or whatever."

"Thanks," he swallows.

"You can't open it until I'm gone," she rushes out when he gets a finger under the envelope seal.

"Okay," he laughs. She doesn't move to leave and he thinks maybe he should flip the right side up but then she's walking towards him slowly, her eyes fixed on his face.

"I have something else as well," she whispers, her hands lightly touching his face. No one has touched him in a non threatening way in so long he almost cries at the contact. In fact, the last time was when she kissed him before he left.

Her fingers find the edge of his mask and she's so close and she smells like hot chocolate and he really doesn't care what she does as long as she stays. He thinks she might take his mask off entirely but she tucks it under his nose.

He takes a deep breath when her fingers skirt along his jaw, his lips, his neck.

"You're really pretty," she whispers, and he can sense her lips and he wants so badly to touch them but he'll wait for her.

"You're pretty -" he starts, but she cuts him off with her lips on his. He moans into it because of course he does. The slow cautious movements of her lips, the way her tongue touches his carefully makes him think that he's in heaven.

It's over too soon. His lips are puffy and hers slightly red from the way he pulled her with his teeth.

"Merry Christmas, Spidey."

"Merry Christmas, MJ."

And then she's gone and he swings to the roof so fast to open the gift she got him that he forgets to worry about calling her a name she's never given him before.

"Holy shit," he whispers as his fingers trace the drawings. There are four. One of Spider-Man, one of Peter and May, one of Peter, Ned and MJ, and one of just Peter and MJ.

"Fuck."

He looks over at her apartment and she's in her bedroom, her hands running through her hair though she's not looking at him, he sees her window is cracked.

He goes to tuck the picture back in the envelope to swing over but the words on the back of the drawing of him and MJ make him pause.

"Hey, Peter. I figured it out. I told you I would. I'm not sure why you didn't tell me. Maybe you changed your mind, maybe you don't want me like that anymore. But I miss you. And I know you too well to wait for you to come to me. But this is the last time I will go first. I miss you. I miss you. I miss you."

He lands on her windowsill and she doesn't jump, maybe she was expecting him to come. He hopes so. He slides the window up and slips in, dropping lightly to the ground and pulling his mask off in case her family come in.

"Hi."

"Took you long enough," she says, spinning around to face him. She doesn't look sad, not particularly disappointed. But she's not happy.

"I'm so sorry -"

"Are you going to leave again?" she asks, her arms folded over her chest.

"No. No, I swear. I have letters and I - I wanted to tell you I was going to tell you," he promises, stepping closer to her. "But you like someone and I didn't want to -"

"I like you, loser."

"Em," he begs, then, "I love you."

Her eyes light up and he'll never forgive himself for not telling her immediately, for not rushing into the coffee shop and giving her the letter and explaining everything. But as he looks at her, the small smile she has on her face as she wraps her arms around him. It doesn't really matter what he thinks.

It's all her.

"I love you."

#spideychelle #petermj #nwh spoilers #jssc snowy season #idk how fluffy this is byeeeee #also ned doesnt exist im so sorruy #ask

[robininthelabyrinth]

Beautifully Spent

aka Five Times Lan Qiren Left The Lan Sect Behind

- Chapter 5 -

It didn’t matter how many years it had been, or that he had died and returned in a different body, or even that he was now a married man, an adult, well-respected by the whole cultivation world – being summoned to have tea with Lan Qiren still had a way of making Wei Wuxian feel like a disobedient schoolboy all over again.

He thought that they were on better terms now than they had been before, at least. At some point after he’d finally settled into the Cloud Recesses for good, Wei Wuxian had started assisting Lan Qiren with his classes, or perhaps more accurately, Lan Wangji had made a request with an eye towards his uncle’s uncertain health, Lan Qiren had refused, and Wei Wuxian had bullied his way in to act as an aide anyway by simply showing up and refusing to leave.

At first, he’d thought Lan Wangji’s idea was a terrible one, thinking that after all he was on bad terms with Lan Qiren, who disapproved of him as a general matter and of Lan Wangji’s relationship with him in specific, and therefore that they were on such bad terms that his presence would only make things worse. Only…one day, he had seen Lan Qiren coughing into his sleeve after they’d all had a brief scare as a result of a badly phrased letter from Lan Sizhui and spotted blood, and then suddenly been assaulted by the memory of Lan Qiren bleeding from all his qiqiao, crying out half-unconscious for Wei Wuxian to stop butchering his flute playing as if that was the only thing he remembered how to condemn.

It was not a memory that Wei Wuxian particularly enjoyed – the man had been his teacher, after all.

So despite his misgivings, he’d gone ahead and done it, and brazened it out the way he always did. They’d fought like cats and dogs at the start, Lan Qiren tetchy and querulous, Wei Wuxian too often inclined to argue just for the sake of arguing, but just as he’d been on the verge of giving it all up as a bad idea, Lan Wangji had, in his oh-so-serious way, told Wei Wuxian that he did not need to assist his uncle if he thought he couldn’t handle it and that, of course, had only lit a fire under his ass to actually manage it.

(Yes, he knew that Lan Wangji had done it on purpose, but it wasn’t like he didn’t use his own sexy wiles to convince Lan Wangji of all sorts of important things, like having a drink with him once in a while.)

At any rate, Wei Wuxian had gritted his teeth and forced himself to play along a bit better with Lan Qiren’s monotone lecturing, and after a while he found to his surprise that assisting with the classes actually wasn’t anywhere near as boring as he thought it would be. In turn, Lan Qiren had eased up a little on him, explaining the reasons behind what he was doing upon request, and things started to work better, little by little.

And now – now they were having tea.

Weird.

“You’ve adjusted well to the Cloud Recesses,” Lan Qiren said, accepting the tea Wei Wuxian poured for him. His voice was neutral and monotone, but Lan Wangji had assured Wei Wuxian that his uncle’s voice always sounded like that, and sure enough all the classes they shared together seemed to bear it out. Even when he was horribly upset and coughing up blood, his voice stayed as toneless and dull as ever; the only thing he really adjusted was the volume.

“Ah, I’ll never quite get the hang of when you wake up,” Wei Wuxian said, automatically deflecting, but Lan Qiren shook his head.

“Ancillary rule,” he said, and a few months of sitting in on Lan Qiren’s classes made Wei Wuxian ponderously put his hands together and say, using his own best monotone, “Ancillary rules support the fundamental rules. Even the keystone in an arch doesn’t stand alone.”

Lan Qiren nodded, serious despite Wei Wuxian’s attempt at teasing (clearly unsuccessful). “And yet you have adjusted to the underlying purpose of the rule regarding when to wake, which is to fill as much of your day with meaning as possible. Your relationship with Wangji is going well?”

Wei Wuxian choked a little. “Uh, yes.” He hoped Lan Qiren wasn’t thinking of dissuading him now – they were already married! Lan Qiren had even participated, accepting Wei Wuxian’s respect in the place of Lan Wangji’s parents. “Did you have any…questions…?”

Lan Qiren shook his head. “You’ve also repaired your relationship with Jiang Cheng, have you not?” he said instead, changing the subject, and – on firmer ground – Wei Wuxian nodded. “Good. He’s an excellent sect leader.”

“He is, isn’t he?” Wei Wuxian said, feeling fond as always when he thought of Jiang Cheng. “He grew up so well.”

It would have been better, of course, if Wei Wuxian had been able to be by his side – but it hadn’t been meant to be, and now they were getting over that.

Lan Qiren nodded.

There was a few moments of silence, and just as Wei Wuxian was wondering if it was his turn to come up with a conversational subject, Lan Qiren put down his cup.

“Xichen has been out of seclusion for over a year,” he said. “Wangji helps him with the work of sect leader, but the bulk has returned to his hands, and he is doing well with it.”

“Yes, definitely,” Wei Wuxian said, but he had to admit he was a little puzzled as to where this conversation was going. It seemed clear that Lan Qiren was leading somewhere, but with all these subject changes, he couldn’t keep up. “Teacher Lan, what’s your point?” he asked, taking a sip of his own tea.

“I want you to take over my classes.”

Wei Wuxian choked.

Lan Qiren politely waited for him to catch his breath. “I’m serious.”

Wei Wuxian had just been about to ask if he was joking. “Why?” he asked. “You love teaching classes.”

It was true, too. He hadn’t appreciated it as a child, seeing only the old man hiding in Lan Qiren’s bones, but Lan Qiren truly loved teaching students – and he was good at it, too. It was impossible to teach those that didn’t want to be taught, so for a reckless idiot like Wei Wuxian who hadn’t been willing to listen, he’d ordered him to copy the rules as a punishment; as a result, to this day, Wei Wuxian could still recite each and every one of them. If Wei Wuxian hadn’t gotten into that fight with Jin Zixuan and been pulled out of the classes so recklessly back then, he might’ve had the chance to learn what he was learning now – not just the basic foundation of what the rules were, but why each rule existed, the history and background of it, the debates and complexity about its meaning, the way each rule intersected with all the others. How the rules, even when seemingly meaningless, had a life and background of their own; how they could be associated with various points of good conduct, of righteousness and ethical behavior.

When they could be broken, and why.

Lan Qiren might be an old man from the bottom of his soul, he might speak in a monotone and be stiff and unyielding and stubborn, slow to change his fixed views on things and even slower to pick up on sarcasm or undue cleverness, but he worked with each student on how to understand what he was trying to convey, teaching them not only the content of his lectures but how to learn. He wasn’t especially patient, wasn’t especially gentle, was overly strict, but his students learned – sometimes despite themselves.

And now…he wanted to give up on his classes?

“Is something the matter?” Wei Wuxian asked, distressed despite himself, thinking of bad blood welling up in Lan Qiren’s chest – thinking of all the stupid things he’d done to aggravate him, whether now or in the past. Had the old man’s health really gotten that bad?

“Nothing is the matter,” Lan Qiren said. “And my health is fine, no matter what Wangji might have you think. It is merely a matter of time. Of time, and of dreams.”

“Of…dreams?”

“Mm,” Lan Qiren said, and for a moment he sounded exactly like Lan Wangji. “When I was a child, I once dreamed of being a traveling musician. I thought I’d roam the world, playing for anyone who would listen, and when I had my fill of wanderlust, return home – retire – teach.”

Wei Wuxian had had no idea. He could scarcely imagine Lan Qiren as a child – no, he couldn’t imagine it at all. Much less wanting to leave the Cloud Recesses as something as daringly bold as being a traveling musician! Not even a rogue cultivator, but a traveling musician!

The brief moment of glee that the image inspired got snuffed out a moment later when he recalled why, exactly, Lan Qiren had never gone out to fulfill his childhood dream. He knew the story well by now, the story of Lan Wangji’s father and mother, their mutual disaster. Wei Wuxian was intimately familiar with sacrificing everything for his loved ones, but he couldn’t even imagine how it must have been to be Lan Qiren – his dreams destroyed by his brother’s selfish actions, another person’s love affair leaving him chained to his sect and raising two children as if they were his own.

Even Jiang Cheng had the comfort of knowing that his life had been destroyed by an enemy.

“I became a teacher prematurely,” Lan Qiren said, nodding when he saw the light of recognition in Wei Wuxian’s eyes. “I have enjoyed it, as I always expected I would. But it is not enough. It is time.”

“Time?” Wei Wuxian echoed, and then realized: “You want to be a traveling musician? Now?”

Surely it was impossible.

Lan Qiren was – not old, no, not really, but his health was bad; he had never recovered from the attack on the Cloud Recesses, from Wen Xu’s vicious attacks that had nearly crippled him. Moreover, he wasn’t just some nobody who could go around unnoticed – he was the only sect leader left from his generation, even if he had technically only played an interim role, and more than that, he was the honorable teacher Lan Qiren, who could turn any waste into a gentleman. He’d taught hundreds of students over the years – Wei Wuxian had seen the records – and he counted among his students some of the most influential people in the cultivation world.

Even Wei Wuxian, who’d been in his class only a month or so and spent most of it in punishment, felt distress at the thought of Lan Qiren trudging through the mud of the mortal world with a guqin on his back, playing for his supper. How would those who had actually done well in his class feel?!

“It will not be as I originally imagined,” Lan Qiren said, entirely calm. “I plan to visit my former students, if they would have me there, and travel only between their homes – it will not be as stressful as the life of a rogue cultivator. I will have the sect’s resources available to assist me. It will be fine.”

“But -!”

“Xichen is sect leader, and recovering well from what he lost. Wangji is your husband, and happy. The only thing binding me to the sect now is my students – and you have helped me with my classes for months now. You are charming and thoughtful, charismatic; the students listen to you. You will do well with it.”

“I don’t know all the rules!”

“You know enough.”

“But – but –”

“If you say no, I cannot go,” Lan Qiren said, and he didn’t even sound angry about it, merely accepting. “I have a duty to see to the juniors’ education. I would entrust you with it, but I will not force it upon you. But I would very much appreciate it if you would agree. Will you do it?”

If I say no, I’d be the one locking you here, Wei Wuxian thought, and swallowed. That didn’t seem right.

“…all right,” he said, and was rewarded by one of Lan Qiren’s rare smiles. “But you have to get me up to speed first!”

“Of course,” Lan Qiren agreed. “I will plan to go only after the New Year, in the spring. I will tell Xichen and Wangji of my decision this evening.”

Wei Wuxian felt his heart freeze at the thought of their reaction at discovering their beloved uncle’s plans – and finding out that he had played a critical role in enabling it.

“Uh,” he said. “I…may need to go out tonight. For a – thing. Important thing! Very…Lotus Pier! I’m going to the Lotus Pier! Urgently!”

Lan Qiren looked at him, unimpressed.

“It will not be that bad,” he said. “They will understand, and there is no reason for them to be concerned.”

“Oh yeah?” Wei Wuxian said, and crossed his arms. “Want to bet on that?”

#mdzs #wei wuxian #lan qiren #my fic #my fics #beautifully spent

[madhyanas]

a strumming of nerves

“Take it,” Din whispers, hissing between his teeth. He’s pleading. “Take it, destroy it. Anything. Just don’t leave me alone with it.”

Read this on AO3!

Characters: Din Djarin & Boba Fett

Rating: T/PG-13

Word Count: 2k

Warnings/Ratings: Post-S2. Boba Fett POV. Haunted Darksaber/Din’s Haunted AU. Sleepwalking. Implied possession. Not horror, but creepy vibes for sure.

Notes: this au was originally created by @keldabekush, @kyberpistol and others! i’m just messing around with it. good luck trying to parse through this one lads idk how it’ll go

masterlist

———

There’s a noise keeping Boba awake.

It’s a thrumming. Quiet enough to settle into the background, seep into the rocky palace walls, it’s almost innocent. He could almost mistake it for the whine of some desert gnat that snuck in underground.

Almost.

But in the months since he and his companions have settled here, lying awake and staring at the ceiling of his palace quarters has never invited such a sick feeling to his stomach. It’s not nausea — he’s well acquainted with that. Kamino, Geonosis, Coruscant, Tatooine. Nausea has followed him like a diseased shadow.

This is different. He calls it anticipation, for to hear a noise and feel fear is foolishness he’s long outgrown.

The noise doesn’t get louder. The snaked, coiled thing growing in the pit of his stomach gets heavier, and heavier.

Just as he feels he may be crushed into the soft sheets by whatever waking night-terror has decided to sit on his chest, Boba sits up. In fact, he gets out of bed, swings his legs over the edge to touch the chilly stone floor, and steps outside. He’s always preferred doing things, anyway.

There’s nothing out of the ordinary as Boba stares out into the empty throne room. Thin, slivered shadows and hollow caverns. There’s nothing besides that kriffing noise, he thinks sourly, tiredly, before he turns his head.

Someone is standing in the hallway.

Danger.

At first he doesn’t believe it. A simple silhouette that Boba can barely make out in the dark. Something about it doesn’t quite seem real, as if that same waking night-terror hasn’t yet been rubbed from his eyes. Boba blinks. Its outline is blurry, encircled by a slim ring of darkness and seeming to shift in and out of focus. Moonlight doesn’t touch the shape, doesn’t even creep near.

Boba doesn’t approach either. Not even when he recognises the figure. The shoulders, the stance. He can feel in his bones that in the inky blackness hides a scruffy jaw and sad, weathered eyes. “Djarin?”

Din does not respond. He continues to stand there, staring silently down at the floor, which throws the figure’s identity into question because Din is polite to a fault. Fennec had laughed about it when they’d first met the man; a bounty hunter with manners.

What’s wrong with the figure, Boba realises, is that it’s still. Too still. He squints. His eyes aren’t what they used to be, and it’s dark, but he doesn’t think ‘Din’ is… breathing.

The very wrongness of the situation has his fingers twitching for a weapon that isn’t there.

Boba is beginning to think he should have carried a blaster.

“Din,” he calls, more urgently. “What are you doing?”

Silence, again. A sudden gust of wind whistles outside the window, churning sand against rocky architecture. It scrapes.

Boba’s frown deepens. This isn’t right.

The figure then turns — though that isn’t the right word for the movement. It’s a kind of swaying, as if the body can’t quite settle its centre of gravity and settles for a light, weightless bobbing around a fixed point. Almost like dangling. There is no rustling of cloth, no scrape of foot against sandstone floor.

Against his better judgement, Boba glances down. Both of the figure’s feet are flat on the ground.

Of course, his rational mind whispers. What were you expecting?

This ‘Din’, still standing at the other end of the hallway, now faces him directly. And gripped tightly in his left hand is the source of that infernal thrumming.

The Darksaber. Ignited and ready for battle, as it always has been.

Now, technically, pointed at Boba. The figure doesn’t turn away. The light it gives off is sickly, splattering Din’s shirt with the same strange, inverse not-glow the blade itself emanates.

It reminds him of a fish, of all things. One he’d read about, so many years ago. The type that suckers in prey with a shining, blinding light.

A throb in his temple makes itself known, winding the tension in his spine even tighter. When did the thrumming get so loud? It’s everywhere; it bites up his legs and punctures the soft spots between his ribs. A clawed hand crushing a spoilt fruit in its grasp.

Boba clenches his fists to stop himself from covering his ears, nails biting into the flesh of his palms. The sound is more piercing this time, with purpose and deadly aim.

Thick, oozing cold settles in his gut. There is only one possible target in this room.

It gets louder. And louder. It ebbs and flows like the tide but so much more vicious. It doesn’t stop; the noise simmers and bubbles and rings in his ears, resounding through the hallway so strongly it shakes his teeth to the tender, aching nerves and pounds at the insides of his skull. It’s swarming out from behind his eyes and it doesn’t stop, why can’t it stop — the Darksaber swings upwards, ready to strike the final blow — why is this happening he should take it—

“Din!”

The figure flinches. Boba’s shout is as good as a bullet. His shoulders heave with staggering breaths. His heartbeat pulses jaggedly at his throat and he’s panting; a cold, thin sheen of sweat is draped over the back of his neck.

The Darksaber is held high above Boba’s head. The crest of a wave, frozen. Then the blade retreats with a quiet whoosh before the hilt clatters to the ground. That’s the only reason Boba realises the thrumming has stopped.

It still doesn’t feel fixed. Nothing does.

The figure stumbles forward and Din’s haggard face is suddenly awash in a sliver of moonlight. He’s a puppet cut down from his strings, crumpling to the ground.

Boba is there to catch him. As it will be.

“Easy. What happened?” he questions gruffly, too preoccupied with checking the other man over for injuries to hear just how hoarse his voice is.

But whatever state he’s in, Din is worse. He stares at some point on Boba’s shoulder with glazed, unfocused eyes. The man is sweating buckets. “I... I don’t know.”

Din’s voice is soft, as Boba has come to expect, though not reassuring. It crackles and bursts to suggest there’s mucus sitting in his airways, spitting and popping like rotting fat thrown out to sizzle on Tatooine street corners.

Perhaps it is reassuring, then, to be holding his friend so limp in his arms like this. Because Boba knows what blood in the lungs sounds like, and the distinct lack of it anywhere in the musty hallway finally brings his racing pulse something close to calm.

Boba makes a slow, calculated move to rise from the floor and lift the other man with him, but Din flinches when he feels Boba’s shoulders tense. A flinch that dissolves into faint tremors wracking his body, which Boba is loath to ignore, but it also clears the fog from his gaze somewhat.

“I’m—” Din clears his throat and forces out a hard, sharp breath. “I’m fine.” He looks Boba in the eye. “I’m fine. Thank you.”

“No, you’re not,” Boba returns dryly, though he can’t deny the weight that slips from his chest. Breathing, talking. Even with the tremors leaching from Din’s bones into his own, they’re good signs.

Din cracks a weak smile, which comes out more as a grimace. In any case, it doesn’t matter when it’s wiped away almost immediately as Din glances to the side.

Boba looks too. Next to the wall, the discarded hilt of the Darksaber stares back.

“Fett,” Din says gravely, keeping his eyes trained on the weapon. So gravely in fact, that Boba’s hackles rise. He’s speaking as if— as if his life depends on it.

“What?”

The fingers on Boba’s shoulder dig in tightly. “Take it,” Din whispers, hissing between his teeth. He’s pleading. “Take it, destroy it. Anything. Just don’t leave me alone with it.”

Boba is not a man easily surprised. But there is something inherently sickening in the crease of Din’s brow, anxious and abandoned. So much about all this is wrong.

He’s pallid, Boba realises. Din is shivering and sickly and sweaty like he’s in the slump of a fever. He’s still staring at that damned saber.

In the dark, they’re both kneeling on the ground. They are kneeling, technically, before the Darksaber itself.

And with a stubborn set of his jaw, Boba makes a decision.

He swings Din up from the ground, maintaining a stable hold on both arms and looping one round his own neck before either of them can topple back down.

“Right,” Boba barks, and Din’s head snaps up. “You’re going to get some sleep. And you’re leaving that blasted thing here.” His voice leaves no room for discussion.

As he marches them back to Din’s quarters, taking careful stock of any acute weaknesses in the other man’s posture and satisfied to find none for now, Din’s gaze remains forward. It latches onto the door with sharp, quiet focus, and the sight could make Boba grin.

The haunted look in his eyes is new territory. But determination; that, Boba can work with.

Walls of granite and sandstone are taller at night, it seems. Boba gets the fleeting sense that they’re boxed in on either side, in such narrow walkways, then shuns the thought. The palace is his territory. He has nothing to fear, here.

Still, he makes his way around the corners a touch quicker than before.

By the time they’ve gotten to Din’s door, neither of them have looked back once. It’s illogical, he knows. But they both look straight ahead without fail. As if that would keep the thrumming at bay. As if they feel the silence is any better.

Din takes a moment to push himself upright, testing his balance. “Thank you,” he says quietly. It’s sincere, which Boba can respect. He just doesn’t know what it’s for.

Settling on a nod, Boba suggests, “I’ll keep it in my quarters.” The empty sword still lies in the other corridor. “We’ll… figure things out in the morning.”

Din’s mouth flattens into a pained line, and a muscle jumps uncomfortably at his temple. Here, with a little more light, Boba can see the bags etched under the man’s eyes. He’s struck with the impression that this… sleepwalking, for lack of a better term, is not a recent development.

“Yeah,” Din mumbles. “In the morning.”

He eyes his cot as a starving man would a feast, but lingers at the boundary.

When Din speaks, Boba almost regrets waiting to hear it.

“I don’t know what it’s doing to me.”

The words are uttered with a familiar, resigned shame that drips to the floor. It puddles around Din in viscous trails, drooping his shoulders and shutting his eyes. Weighing him down for longer than a night, clearly.

“I don’t know anymore, Fett. Sometimes I can hear it talking to me. Talking. I think I might—” He wheezes out a sigh, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes as if to purge whatever he sees there.

A moment to collect himself, drag all the pieces together with string and a loose knot. Then, in a quiet, ragged voice, Din confesses, “I think I’m going insane.”

False platitudes have never come easily to Boba, and they don’t start now. His jaw is slack as he searches for the words, anything to fill that chasm, until he realises there aren’t any.

So he doesn’t say anything at all, save for a slow, sympathetic hand on Din’s shoulder. He stands with his friend.

And in the dark of the palace, Boba wonders if Din might be right.

———

#din djarin #boba fett #the mandalorian #the mandalorian fic #haunted darksaber #din's haunted #dins haunted #haunted darksaber au #au #star wars #star wars fic #gen fic #my writing #teaofpeach #a strumming of nerves #i wrote this as a genfic but now im realising that i made this a tad fruitier than i expected. do w that what you will #fun! v different to what i usually do i think #not sure if it's great but ah #got more haunted darksaber stuff to work on but this was ok ish #aaaaaaa

[milk-carton-whump]

A story! A story!

Tagging: @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi (cuz I know u like winged whumpees) @unicornscotty @cowboy-anon @sideblogformindtrash

TW: wing whump, amputee whumpee, painful prosthetic, kinda medical whump, technician whumper, blood tw

Winged Atrocity

A string of curses poured from his mouth as he brushed dirt and torn up grass off his chest. Looking up to the sky where he'd just been flying above the trees and now, now his stupid wing had broken on him again. He hated it, hated the faulty technology and shit design that allowed him to fly again. He stretched out his real wing to inspect it for damages, the webbing and bones seemed to be fine.

Next he turned his attention to the fake one, a prototype and technical marvel in its own right. He stretched it out too, the webbing between the metal 'bones' was ripped again and the main support seemed to be frozen up again. His hands wrapped around the metal and fabric, shoving it away from his body in frustration and immediately regretted it. The mechanical wing pulled at his muscles and skin, with it being broken it was dead weight hanging from his back.

His sharp canines dug into his lip until the foul taste of metal reached his taste buds. Finally the pain seemed to dull, if only from a sharp pain to a throbbing one to give him a chance at folding the faulty tech up. A few straps from his bag and the piece of junk that could barely be called a wing was folded safely against his back. He looked skyward, toward where he'd come from and started walking. It'd be a long few miles.

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

"Ah you're back, Myr. I was beginning to think you got lost." A voice said with a laugh as he opened the front door.

"Don't act all friendly Bjorn, you fucked up my wing again. Now fix it." He snapped.

"Polite today, aren't we?... fine, on the bench with you." The man said and patted a steel table he'd been working at.

Myr winced as he manually moved his false wing behind him to sit, the sharp pain returning in full force. His fingers gripped the table, squeezing what ounce of life it may have had out of it as Bjorn undid the straps holding it closed.

"Must you be so rough?!" Myr snapped.

"I haven't even started, relax." Bjorn bit back and purposely jostled the defective wing.

His sharp teeth grit from the pain, it made his muscles strain and pull. Every little movement, adjustment, and touch only brought more discomfort as the man behind him fixed his wing.

"Looks like you shredded the hinges and snapped a cable…. Again. You do realize this thing isn't easy to fix and you go around breaking it every chance you get."

"If you made it sturdy, like I've asked you to… multiple times, it wouldn't be a problem. It's not like a piece of art, Bjorn. It's meant to be a part of my body."

"I can rip it off, leave you completely vulnerable and useless. Is that what you'd rather, Myr?!" He snapped back and to prove his point, yanked on the tender base of the wing.

Myr muffled his scream, biting deep into his fist until he tasted blood. Tears welled up in his eyes, blurring his vision until they became heavy and rolled down his cheeks. Everything hurt, he almost wished he had never asked for the wing to be made. It would've saved him hours upon hours of ache had he just lived without a wing.

#wing whump #amputee whumpee #painful prosthetic #kinda medical whump #technician whumper #blood tw #myr #bjorn

[marvelouspeterparker]

i’m yours

pairing: sub!tom holland x reader

summary: classic sub!tom being needy. just smut without a plot really.

word count: 5.7k

warnings: 18+ content –– there’s pegging in this near the end so if you’re not a fan, don’t read or skip over it (it’s clear where it starts)

notes: this was 100% inspired by this audio and sovereign by @farfromparker​ (she fuels my love for sub!tom)

You felt a hand slide over your waist, gentle and hesitant and you smiled into your pillow. You could tell that Tom was needy today but you purposely didn’t do anything about it. He wasn’t in trouble or anything, you were just being a tease. And you wanted to see how long it would take for him to say something. The answer was all day, apparently.

You had walked into your bedroom in just a shirt and panties after brushing your teeth and getting ready for bed and you had noticed Tom sitting there, a slight nervous energy around him. You gave him a quick kiss and you could have sworn you felt him gasp lightly. You looked into his eyes for a brief moment before saying a quick goodnight, walking over to your side of the bed, getting under the covers and turning off your bedside lamp.

Tom had sighed quietly and gotten under the covers as well but you could feel that he was still sitting up, his legs stretched out, his bedside light still on.

It took him a few minutes to gather the courage to speak up.

You felt him lean over behind you. His breath was gentle, like silk against your neck. His fingertips were grazing the sliver of skin on your waist where your shirt had ridden up.

He slowly left a trail of kisses down the side of your neck, all the way to your shoulder and you took a deep breath. With your eyes still closed, you backed up into him, letting your ass grind into his hardening cock, a teasing smile on your face.

He hissed, his grip tightening on your waist as he rubbed himself into your backside, his body almost sighing in relief after being ignored all day.

“You awake?” he asked softly.

You let out a small hum.

“Can we please snuggle-fuck baby? Or just grind on each other? Just—Anything please...” He dropped his head down into the crook of your neck, leaving small kisses as he whined into your skin. It felt as though his words were seeping into you, through your veins, and making your heart beat faster. “I’m so hard baby. Please. I’ve been such a good boy.”

You spoke up for the first time in a while, “Hm I don’t know Tom. Think you have to work for it.”

He whimpered before kissing your cheek and letting his hand slide up under your shirt to rest under your breasts.

“Will you let me taste you, miss?” His fingertips slid up to graze your nipples and your back arched in response, making him smile. “Wanna prove myself to you. Wanna be good for you.”

You turned on your back and finally opened your eyes, not surprised to see the desperate, dark look in Tom’s gaze. “Go on then,” you smirked.

He wasted no time and quickly made his way between your legs, slipping your panties off before burying his face between your thighs.

He spread your lips with two fingers before licking his way through them, leaving passionate kisses that had you squirming under him. His free hand wrapped its way around your thigh, his fingers pressing delicately into your skin to hold you down and your hand was quick to rest on top of it, desperately grabbing for support.

Tom looked up at you and it took him every ounce of self control not to grind into the bed at the sight of you. You didn’t give him permission to touch—and though that technically wouldn’t go against the rules, he had to be good.

Though this felt good for you, and even for Tom as well, it wasn’t enough for him—he wanted less control.

To his dismay and yours, he pulled away, his hands in his lap as he sat up, his eyes avoiding yours.

You sat up on your elbows, trying your best to ignore your pulsing heat, “What is it baby?”

He swallowed and glanced up at you before looking back at his hands. “Want—“ he paused to clear his throat. “Want you to use me.”

You tilted your head as you looked at him, a teasing smile on your face. “Aww baby, you want to be used like a fuck toy?”

He opened his mouth slightly in shock at the bluntness of your response before nodding, still not looking you in the eye.

You tutted, “If you want something you have to say it baby boy. You know that.”

He gulped, “I—“

“Look at me.” When his eyes reached yours, the desperation and want in them honestly made your pussy clench.

He licked his lips slowly, “I—I want you to use me for your pleasure. Please, miss?” His hands slid from your thighs to your waist and you almost shivered under his touch. “I’m just your personal fuck toy. Wanna be treated like one.”

Your smile was sinister by the time he finished speaking. You got up on your knees and took your shirt off before standing up on the bed and you could feel Tom’s gaze piercing you as he watched you in awe. “Lie down.”

Tom was in position before you even finished your sentence, his eyes glazing over your figure. You trailed your fingers over his abs down to his thigh, purposely skipping over his hard cock straining through his boxers. “Such an obedient little puppy, huh?”

He nodded eagerly and you couldn’t help but laugh. You stood up and he raised his head, getting your seat ready.

You hovered your pussy over his mouth, steadying yourself with one hand on his chest, holding him down. He stuck his tongue out but when you didn’t lower yourself, he raised his head in an attempt to reach you, but you lifted yourself just out of his reach. You did this several times before whines began spilling out of his mouth. “Please, miss.” His voice broke mid-sentence and you looked down to see his glassy eyes looking up at you, pleading.

“You‘re that desperate to taste me again, baby?”

He nodded, “Wanna make you feel good.”

“Oh really?” you raised a brow, tilting your head down at him. “Or do you just want to please me so I can let you cum?”

He shook his head immediately, his eyes wide. “N—No! I love tasting you, you know that!” he turned his cheek to kiss your thigh softly, “Could go the rest of my life just eating your sweet pussy—s’all I need. I promise.”

Satisfied with his response, you sunk down onto his mouth. He let out a quick “Thank you miss!” before your pussy muffled his words.

He slid his tongue between your folds, licking and sucking at your clit before he stuck his tongue out for you to ride leisurely at your own pace.

Your thighs clenched around his head and he groaned into your heat, making your body quiver. Your free hand snuck into his hair, pulling at the strands the way you know he liked as you felt yourself get closer to the edge.

Your voice was soft and strained as you moved your hips more aggressively. “Gonna make me cum, Tommy. That’s it.” He whimpered and moved his head along with you, his hands resting on the back of your thighs as he pushed you over the edge.

Your eyes fluttered shut and your whole body tensed around him. “Fuck—“

Tom hummed and you could feel him looking up at you with a smile on his face as you slowly continued your movements. When you felt like you had enough, you slid off of him and lied down on the bed, covering your eyes with your arm to rest for a bit, a satisfied lazy smile on your face.

You felt Tom shift on the bed and he pouted as he looked at you. “Please don’t fall asleep yet.” His lips wrapped around your nipple as his hands explored your torso. You sighed and removed your arm, opening your eyes to find him staring at you with puppy dog eyes.

“Need you.” When you didn’t respond, he took your hand in his, “Feel how full my balls are for you, miss. Feels like I’m gonna explode.”

You almost let out a moan as he squeezed your palm around him, letting out a stuttered sigh as you finally touched him. You took a deep breath, having rested for enough time and sat up, telling Tom to lie down once again.

Your gaze was predatory as you crawled between his legs, staying near his feet to pull off his boxers then making your way closer to where he needed you most. He spread his legs instinctively and it pleased your possessive side more than it should have.

“No one else gets to see you like this, isn’t that right baby boy?” The question was rhetorical, but he found himself nodding along eagerly, making you smile and fueling your ego even more. “No one else gets to touch you like I do.” You looked into his eyes and he felt paralyzed with lust. “No one else gets to fuck you.” He groaned and visibly shivered from your words.

You were about to touch him when something caught your eye. “Can you lift your legs for me, baby?” He nodded sheepishly, knowing what you’d seen and propped his legs up. “Now what do we have here?” Your hands lightly touched his thighs as your eyes zeroed in on the plug inside of him. “When did you put this in?” You twirled it gently and he let out a huge breath of air, his legs unconsciously trying to close before he forced himself to pry them open.

“I––“ He looked up at you, feeling even more bare when he noticed how focused you were on him, specifically between his legs. “I put it in this morning…”

You finally looked up at him, “You’ve had this in all day, puppy?”

He nodded.

“Such a naughty little thing you are.” You teased.

“Just wanted to get ready for you.”

You hid your smile and tapped his knees twice, signaling for him to put his legs back down.

You kissed his thigh, once, then twice before leaving a trail of kisses up to his hip bone. You got so lost in the feeling of his soft skin on your lips that you barely noticed him squirming and mewling underneath you as you left your marks along his hip.

His back arched, his toes curling in frustration at the feeling of you being so close to where he craved you. You pressed his hips down with one hand subconsciously and he whined, burying his head in his pillow.

You surprised him by grabbing his cock suddenly and he let out a gasp as his body submitted to you immediately, his eyes meeting yours.

“Where do you wanna cum tonight, baby boy? Hm? All over me? In my mouth?” You licked up the length of his cock, staring right at him and he felt his brain stop functioning. When he didn’t respond, you continued. “On my tits?” You kissed his tip, “On my ass?” You swirled your tongue around him, “In my pussy?” before sliding him into your mouth for a moment, but only the tip. “All over the sheets while I’m pounding into you?”

He groaned loudly and was practically out of breath, overwhelmed by you and the thoughts of what you’d let him do to you that he couldn’t even respond. “I––I don’t know.”

“No?” you pouted playfully, still mouthing at his cock. “Then I guess I’ll just have to choose for you.” You before sinking your warm mouth down on him. He shuddered, biting his lip roughly as he tried his best to keep his hands at his sides. You could see them almost twitching near your head, aching to feel you, but you weren’t going to be that nice today. At least not right now.

You looked up at him and noticed his blissed out expression, his shut eyes, his glistening skin—He always looked so beautiful like this.

“Look so pretty for me, baby.” Your hand stroking his cock.

He whined and his hips bucked up, almost like a child throwing a tantrum. Your praise always go straight to his cock when you were like this.

You slapped his thigh, “Don’t be a brat.” He could feel your stern glare even though his closed eyes. “What do you say? Gave you a compliment, pretty boy.”

A new wave of pink flushed his cheeks. “Th—Thank you miss.”

His whole body was tense as you put your mouth back on him. Your hands were occupied, one stroking his cock while the other played with his balls. His whole body felt like a live wire.

You pulled your mouth off of him. “Seems like you’re close, puppy.”

“Think I’m gonna cum—“

“Well we can’t have that, now can we?” You pulled away from him completely and relished in the broken whimper he let out.

You climbed over him and grabbed his cock behind you, sliding his tip through your wetness.

“Fuck your pussy is so wet, miss.”

You smiled, “you know why?” You leaned forward to grab his jaw and let your lips graze against his, “Cause you’re so fucking sexy, baby boy. Everything you do turns me on.”

He whined, biting his lip and craned his neck to capture your lips in a kiss but you pulled away making him grumble up at you, his brows furrowed. He was about to complain but you cut him off by sinking down on him unexpectedly, making him moan louder than he would’ve wanted.

You grinned, “Fuck baby, you sound so good for me.” You reached down and wrapped your fingers around his throat and his eyes rolled back before he forced them open again. He always loved watching you bounce on his cock, he thought you looked heavenly, which was ironic considering you were doing something oh so sinful.  

You paused your movements, moving your weight onto your knees and putting your face in the crook of his neck. “You can touch.” His hands eagerly reached up to hold you, gripping you for some sort of stability almost so he wouldn’t float away. You left a wet kiss on his neck and trailed your tongue along his ear before biting his earlobe and he dug his fingers into your waist. “Bend your legs and put your feet on the bed, baby.”

He gasped and did as he was told. “Always so good at following instructions.” You pressed a kiss to his cheek and he felt the blood rush to his face and his cock from your praise. “Now wrap your arms around me.”

His arms slid over your back and tightened around you as you got comfortable. You licked your lips in anticipation before continuing. “Now I want you to fuck your cock into my wet pussy slowly. I’ll tell you if and when you can speed up.”

He cursed quietly, “Christ—“ He raised his hips and bucked into you and he sighed, his hold tightening around you. “Feels so fucking good.”

He took his time, just as you said to, letting you feel every inch of his cock as he felt the wet walls of your pussy clench around him.

Your fingers, still on his throat, dug further into his skin, bound to leave marks and he moaned, his eyes fluttering shut.

You weren’t playing nice. You waited a good five minutes of him slowly fucking you before letting him go faster. How you yourself lasted, you have no idea.

Your body jolted forward with every thrust and with the combination of the pressure on his neck, the feeling of your breath on his ear and the sounds of your moans, Tom was done for. His hips were slapping against your ass so quickly that the sound was almost deafening but his ears were always in tune to your moans.

“I’m so fucking close, miss.”

You waited a second before responding. “Then you know what to do baby boy.” You kissed his cheek, “I didn’t give you permission yet.”

He whined and eventually forced himself to stop his hips after a few more thrusts, his cock throbbing inside you.

You kept him inside you for a bit longer just to tease him, grinding down on his cock as you left pretty marks on his neck with your hands and teeth.

You weren’t trying to torture him—no correction, you weren’t trying to torture him that much, but he just felt too good and the friction on your clit was just right. So you didn’t stop, even when he was trembling underneath you, his nails digging into your skin as he practically screamed for mercy.

“I can’t hold it! Please miss!”

Though he was begging for mercy, the sadistic part of you only got more turned on. “Yes you can. If you wanna be a good fuck-toy you’ll just lay there and let me use you until I cum. Got it?”

“Okay okay I’ll try—“ his voice cracked as he whined. You hummed in response before letting your eyes shut and cumming all over his cock.

“Shit baby oh my god—“

“Fuuuckk me—“ He felt like he was going to burst through his skin.

Your pussy clenched around him and he could feel you get wetter as you climaxed. When you looked over at him, tears were pooling in his eyes, so you kissed him and released your grip on his throat before taking his cock out of you.

He hissed both in relief and anguish. He wanted to cum so bad but he wanted to be a good boy too. Your good boy. He was properly fucked out and you haven’t even let him cum yet.

You brought a hand down between your legs and swiped some of your wetness before crawling over to straddle Tom. You hovered over him, one hand holding yourself up near his head while the other showed your two fingers covered in your juices near his mouth, teasing him. He craned his neck to try and taste but you pulled away just in time, before putting the fingers in your mouth, practically deep-throating them in front of him. His mouth parted, his eyes completely entranced by you, he didn’t even know what to say.

You slid your fingers out of your mouth and licked from the bottom to the tips, while looking him in the eye. “I really do taste good, huh.”

He nodded absentmindedly––when he was like this he would agree with basically anything you said. Just a mindless little toy.  

You stroked his cock for a bit, enjoying the sounds that came out of him when you squeezed your hand around him.

Then, you turned around and inched your way backwards, opening your legs to rest on either sides of his thighs and his hands eagerly came to rest on your waist. You positioned yourself comfortably, leaning your head back on his shoulder and he sighed into yours softly as you slipped him inside of you.

You slowly began moving up and down on his cock, mainly moving your hips as you rested most of your weight on him—moaning lightly at the stretch. Soon, your legs were getting tired from the strain so you told him to bend his legs and thrust into you.

“I need you to fuck me baby,” you said breathlessly yet assertively. “Can you do that for me?”

He nodded and positioned himself, wasting no time as he began to follow your instructions. You were so wet he was honestly surprised he hadn’t slipped out of you yet. He bit into your shoulder softly, soothing the sting with his a swipe of his tongue and a kiss, overwhelmed by how good you felt.

“God it feels like your pussy is gonna milk me dry, love.”

You laughed breathlessly but that was soon cut off by a moan when his arm wrapped around you tightly and his free hand came up to squeeze your breasts. He picked up the speed and you could hear his skin slapping against yours.

You turned your head and sighed into his neck.

He slipped a hand down between your thighs and paused, “Can I?”

“You wanna make me cum again puppy?”

He nodded, grunting out a response. “So bad.”

You grinned, “Go ahead.” You kissed his neck appreciatively before your mouth dropped open. You were so stimulated and so wet, your clit felt like it was on fire—the heat was invigorating. Your legs threatened to close but Tom stretched his out, forcing them open, wanting to do his job properly.

His movements were calculated, you could hear him panting as he tried to hold off his orgasm and focus on you. “Want you to cum for me miss.” His arm tightened around you, securing you in place. “Can you please cum for me? Cum for your boy.”

You let out a mix between a whine and a moan from his words and soon tipped over the edge. Your body tensed, it felt like all the atoms in your body were vibrating on a high intensity. Tom had stopped his hips but his fingers were still rubbing your clit and he didn’t stop until your hand reached down and pulled his away.

He smiled sheepishly, kissing your shoulder. “Sorry.”

You smiled lazily, your eyes barely open. “S’Okay baby. You did so good, made me feel amazing.”

You could feel his cock twitch inside you from his words and couldn’t help but clench around him to be a tease. He hissed and gripped your sides in an attempt to control himself.

You took a moment and then you climbed off of him and lied down on the bed, shooing him out of the way. “Go get one of the ropes.” He bit his lip, nodding as he made his way over to the special drawer. “And you can get one more toy––you get to pick what it is.”

He grinned to himself as he made his choice. “Thank you miss.”

He made his way back to the bed and you took in what he’d gathered. He set down the rope, a dildo and your harness on the sheets and you could feel yourself get wetter at just the sight of these toys.

You sat up on your knees, grabbing the rope and he sat down on the bed, his back facing you, his arms behind his back. “That toy is pretty big,” you pointed out the ambitious size of the dildo he’d picked.

“Want you to stretch me out, love. Wanna feel you deep inside.”

You tied his hands securely before sliding up behind him. You placed your hand around his throat from behind and pulled his head towards you. He tilted his head immediately, inviting you to mark his neck and you grinned, leaning forward to lick and bite at his skin. “I’ll fuck you baby, I promise. But first, you’re gonna fuck me one last time.”

You let go of him and went back to the middle of the bed, positioning yourself on you hands and knees before sliding down to your forearms, tilting your head to look at him. His eyes traveled all over your body, an undeniable hunger in them. “You gonna give it to me, baby?” You shook your ass playfully and he groaned, shutting his eyes for a few seconds to compose himself before turning around and climbing on to the bed as best he could. You smiled watching him struggle and he swallowed at the mischievous, dirty look in your eyes.

He made his way over to you, looking in awe at the curve of your ass, the arch of your back. But your words snapped him out of his reverie, a teasing tone in your voice.

“Think you can put it in?”

He cursed softly to himself and tried to slide himself in. He thrusted his hips forward gently but his tip only slid down your folds and pressed against your clit, making you moan and move your hips in a circle. He moved back and tried again, his tip only barely grazing your opening. He whimpered, trying again, but he still wasn’t getting anywhere.

You laughed, “Aww poor thing,” you grabbed his cock and he jolted, his stomach clenching. You put his tip inside of you, “Stay right there puppy.”

He whined, forcing his hips to stay still even though he could feel himself getting lost in the feeling of you and how wet you were. Before he could complain, you pushed your hips back, coaxing a gasp from him and stayed there with your ass pressed against his hips. Slowly you moved your hips, grinding back against him and he bit his lip, torn between wanting to let his head fall back and enjoy the pleasure and wanting to watch you move around him. He chose the latter.

Soon you started pushing yourself back against him, slowly and teasingly and he was mesmerized by the way your ass looked as it bounced off of him. Once you started getting tired, you stopped moving, looking over your shoulder to find him staring at you, waiting for instructions. You bit your lip, your eyes locking with his. “You can fuck me now, baby.”

He licked his lips and thrusted into you, building up the pace quickly until he was pounding into you desperately, whines and moans spilling from him. The sound of his cock pushing through your wetness was so loud and so arousing, it wasn’t helping Tom’s efforts to hold back. You pushed yourself back on to him, your mouth dropping open at how good he felt hitting that perfect spot inside of you.

“Just like that––Fuck, Tommy.”

You leaned your head down onto your forearm and slid your other hand down between your legs, jolting forwards from how sensitive you were and Tom’s hips were quick to chase you hopelessly. He was letting out small grunts and noises behind you, you could tell how sensitive and needy he was just from the sound of him.

“God, you’re gonna make me cum again––“ you cut yourself off with a moan. Your movements paused, your body tensing as you clenched around him, your legs shaking as they shut together. You fell forward and Tom let out a sound that resembled a wail as his hips chased you pathetically. He was losing his self control and if you didn’t love the way he sounded and looked when he was like this, you’d feel bad.

Your body was still twitching slightly as you turned around to lay on your back. Tom was staring at you like he wanted to eat you, his mouth hung open, his eyes dark as he panted above you, resting his weight on his thighs. You absolutely loved it.

You sat up on your knees so that you were higher than him and he craned his head up to look at you. You tugged his curls back and left a possessive kiss on his neck, making him groan loudly in the quiet space around you. You reached around him and untied his hands. He flexed his fingers and rolled his shoulders as you handed him the harness, a smirk on your face. “I know you like putting this on me.”

He grinned, nodding. “Love it.”

He hooked it around you delicately, under your thigh and around before tightening it and placing the toy in the middle.

You grabbed the base of the dildo, looking at your boy sensually as he practically drooled at the sight of you. “You gonna wet my cock for me, baby?”

He nodded, “Please,” getting on his hands and knees to lick up the length of your cock and slide it into his mouth. He spit on it and put in as much as he could until he gagged. You grabbed his hair and he moaned, bobbing his head around you.

“Doing so good, baby boy, that’s it.”

He hummed and started moving more enthusiastically as you thrusted into his mouth gently. He was slobbering all over your cock, wanting to do a good job and earn his privilege to cum. Once he glanced up at you, his mouth full, you couldn’t take it anymore. You pulled him off of you and brought him up to your face. You bit his lip, savoring the sound it coaxed out of him, and moved to whisper in his ear, “You gonna sit on my cock?”

He agreed eagerly like a desperate little thing and you lied down, letting him swing his leg over you. Once he was hovered over you, he reached under himself and pulled his plug out, sighing as he set it aside. Then he looked down at you expectantly and you glided your hands up and down his thighs soothingly as you looked at him innocently.

“You gonna put me in, baby?” He nodded so fast you had to bite your lip to hide your laugh, “Alright, babe, go on.”

He grabbed your cock sat down until his thighs reached your hips, letting out a long moan when he was filled to the brim. You took one hand off of his thigh, and wrapped it around his base, making him nearly fold over on top of you from the pleasure.

“Fuck––“

His eyes shut tight as he moved his hips, your hand moving up and down his cock easily, still wet from you and his precum.

“You feel so good, baby" he moaned out, grinding down on your strap-on as you stroked him. “Stroking your good boy’s cock—“

Though his words made you clench around nothing, you couldn’t let him know how much of an affect he had on you. “Hm I don’t know about my good boy...” you teased, “I am stroking your cock, though.”

He shook his head, barely able to form words as he did everything he could to disagree with you.

“No?” you questioned, “I’m not?”

He looked down at you, your fist still stroking his cock tightly as he thrusted into your hand. “It’s—not mine—fuck!” he panted as he tried his best to finish his sentence, “It’s your cock, I’m fucking yours.”

His movements became frantic, his hips bouncing and grinding on top of you as he thrusted his cock into your hand recklessly. He was whining, his hands grabbing at you where he could––your thighs, your waist.

You knew what he wanted. You always did. But you preferred when he begged for it—and he knew that.

“What is it, Tommy?” he moaned at the nickname and you couldn’t help but smirk at the sound and at the sight of him completely at your mercy.

“Please—please feed me a taste of your sweet pussy, darling” he whined out, the dildo rubbing against the sensitive spot inside of him. “I need it-“ he choked out, his eyes shutting closed, mouth dropping open as he panted and awaited your touch to his tongue.

Biting your lip, you reached around his thigh and between your legs, rubbing your fingers between your folds and collecting your wetness before reaching up and smearing it on Tom’s lips before shoving them into his eager mouth. He tipped his head back and moaned at the taste of you, his lips immediately wrapping around your fingers before sucking and licking them clean.

The sight of him was completely entrancing––the sheen layer of sweat on his body, the pink flush to his cheeks and the vein on his neck. He was yours.

“Can I please cum, baby?”

“Just–––“ he cut himself off, swallowing loudly, “Just need one more taste.”

You took one look into his pleading eyes and couldn’t find it in yourself to say no. He knew you always fell for those puppy dog eyes. “Cum for me, puppy.”

Your hand reached back down between your legs and up to his mouth again. As soon as your taste hit his tongue, his eyes rolled back and he moaned loudly as his hips stilled, his whole body tensing as he came onto your chest.

He panted for a few moments on top of you and you stroked his cock slowly, making sure you emptied him out as you rubbed his thigh soothingly.

“Fuck,” he laughed breathlessly, a teasing tone to his voice. “I made a mess.”

You looked up to see him biting his lip but before you could say anything he leaned down and licked up your neck before biting your earlobe. You tried your best to repress the shiver that struck through your body but to no use. “Can I clean you up, darling?” he asked teasingly. “S’only fair since I made the mess.”

You nodded, not trusting your voice but brought a hand up to grip at his hair, reminding the both of you who’s in charge. He simply grinned, pleased by the pain as he slid down slightly, the strap-on still pushing deep inside of him, making him groan as his tongue made it’s way around your torso, licking up his release. He started near your belly button and slowly made his way up between your breasts before making sure to pay attention to both of your nipples, licking and sucking on them as he cleaned up. You moaned, your hips rolling into his ass making him whine as you tugged at his hair, only spurring him on even more.

When he finished up, you tugged his hair and pressed your lips against his, sliding your tongue between his lips and tasting him. He sighed into your mouth, letting you assume control of him and his mouth. You pulled away too quickly for his liking and couldn’t help your smile as he grumbled in protest. You tapped his thigh and he got the message, getting up and taking the strap-on and harness off of you, setting it aside. He climbed back up next to you and lifted your arm, a flustered smile on his face as he settled in the crook of your neck, putting one leg between yours.

You stroked his hair gently, “You were such a good boy tonight, baby.”

He hummed happily, pressing a soft kiss to your skin. “Thank you, miss.”

You could tell he was dozing off by how quiet his response was and how soft his breaths were. “We should really clean up properly, you know.” You whispered, turning to kiss his forehead.

He nuzzled further into you, sighing like a kitten. “In a minute––Jus’ wanna cuddle with you.” By the end of his sentence he was already knocked out. You really had fucked him good.

“Okay,” You smiled, settling in to shut your eyes as well, “Sweet dreams, baby.”

#tom holland #tom holland smut #tom holland x reader #tom holland imagine #tom holland fic #sub!tom holland #sub!tom holland x dom!reader #sub!tom holland smut #sub!tom holland imagine

[morgana-ren]

Damn validation hits different when its from your favorite Shigaraki poster.

No but really creepy obsessed Shigaraki can like get it however it he wants it. Just like that act of having blood on your hands from killing someone "accidentally/on purpose" and Shigaraki making you touch him and in turn touching you with the blood of your friends that he spilled to get your attention is like 🥵🥵🥵. The manipulation, the bloodshed, the unhealthy relationship that's gonna result cause like. You jumped at an opportunity to kill babe, in the end you're just like him. Or Shigaraki forcing you to hold the knife or whatever and kill your remaining friend(s). Its hot and romantic if you think about. Just like spilling blood together even if its accidental is AMAZING

I honestly can't write for shit, I just have ideas and run on sentences but I'll take whatever scraps you throw my way❤

Thank you so much! ❤️ 💕 I’m telling you, it’s a fuckin’ awesome idea. Look, on some level, a lot of us were simpin’ for these slashers. Especially when it came to the ones that got a little too close and personal. One going crazy for you and using your weaknesses against you? Holding your friends lives against you and bending you to his whims or else? Top tier.

Mmmmhmmhmhmmhhaaaaahahaaa okay so I tried my hand at a quick one, just him being a total bastard. You know, cause why not. I can technically make it more crazy and romantic as opposed to ‘total psychopath holds me captive’, but this is what ended up coming out atm. I hope it’s alright! He is not nice, because I never write him nice. He’s actually a complete bastard, but you know.

Tomura shoves you through the rocks and fauna that line the camping area and forward toward one of the craft cabins, practically carrying you at this point because your own legs are too weak to hold your own body weight. 

A quick flip of the switch to turn on the ugly, yellowish flickering lights reveals he's got one of your fellow councilors tied up and unconscious with their head lopped over on their shoulder, a little dribble of blood trailing down their temple from where he hit them with the butt of the knife. You're shaking in his grip as he gently guides you in front of the chair, rubbing up and down your arms in a way that is likely meant to be comforting but gives away his already barely concealed excitement.

"You said you'd do whatever I ask, right?"

Dread blooms, threading through your ribcage and squeezing, suffocating your lungs and anchoring your gut to the floor in abject horror. Bile rises up to tickle your esophagus as he presses the hilt of the blade to your palm- still slick with blood and caked with the viscera of your fellow campers- your friends. You tear your face away. You can't look. You can't look.

"I want you to prove it to me."

His hand constricts across your chin in an iron grip and yanks your face back toward them, your tears pooling in the slats of his fingers. He gently curls each of your own fingers around the knife- so gently in contrast to the way he's lodged against your jaw- before releasing you and shoving you forward.

“You’re going to kill them. I even made it easy for you. He’s out cold- no screaming, no struggling, none of the obnoxious stuff I had to deal with. All you gotta do is push the knife in to prove your loyalty to me.”

The dam breaks and you fall to your knees, shaking your head as the knife falls from your hand and clatters to the floor, spinning aimlessly on its axis. Sobs catch in your throat, hiccupping relentlessly through the choked gasps and guttural blubbers. “I-I can’t! I won’t! You can’t make me do this! Please, Tomura-”

He rolls his eyes, plucking the knife from the floor before threading his hands through your hair to the scalp and jerking you back up to your feet and into his arms again. Your teeth clench at the pain, another sob wracking your spine as you almost double back over. “I can make you do anything I want- Don’t forget what this is.” Releasing your hair, he curls an arm around under your tits, holding you upright, his other pushing the knife back into your sweaty palm, hand curling around yours to guide you. “Don’t forget what happens if you don’t do what I ask. I’ll even help you, if you’ll stop your incessant sniveling.” He moves forward, bringing you with him closer to your target, brandishing the knife entwined in your hands. The sharp blade catches on the collar of their pastel camp shirt, moving lower as Tomura calculates out exactly where to move- he won’t drag this out just to hurt you. He might be cruel, but he’s not a monster.

“Right there-” The tip sits point blank, scaling downward below the inner part of the left clavical bone- stopping approximately between the fourth and fifth ribs and angling the knife upward. Hours of volunteering to teach the camp anatomy lesson tells you as much. “We’ll push it in together right there. It’ll be almost instant, I swear-”

“Please- I can’t-” “You can.” He cranes his neck and kisses your hairline, and you recoil as much as you from his affections. “And you will. For me.” A hideous giggle as he kisses at the shell of your ear. “And for yourself.”

His hand moves forward, taking yours along with him, and the tip of the blade dents in the billow of your victim’s shirt. Your hand shakes, fingers trembling, but guided by Tomura’s movements, it nudges in deeper, and you meet the first level of flesh.

“Now just push it in-”

A small patch of blood begins to bloom outward from the point of contact, piercing his skin as Tomura wedges the blade in deeper with a slow, fluid movement. You could swear that as it embeds further into his skin, that his body quivers and tightens-

“C’mon- Almost there. A few more inches and you’ll be done-”

At this point, he’s the only thing anchoring your hand to the handle, more his efforts than your own. He’s definitely taking far more pleasure in this than you; A terrible, carnivorous smile sliced across his face as he claims your faltering fingers beneath his own. He’s made it perfectly clear what’s to become of you if you dare to defy him, but even as the proverbial guillotine looms above your neck, every instinct in your body screams to shove him off, to run, to hide where he can never find you.

But he’s stronger than you- faster too- made sure to impress upon you that he’s smarter as well. He’s made a point of telling you in explicit detail what will become of you if he has to chase you down again, but the impulse is thrumming through your veins side by side with the adrenaline that makes you nauseous. Even if you could fend him off- even if he couldn’t catch you- you could never go home. He’d spent months planning this down to the marrow. Every little detail orchestrated to look like the handiwork of an unhinged and underappreciated camp councilor- you.

There’s so much blood. On him. On you. Dribbling down the front of the unconscious councilor’s shirt and staining the pastel a stark red that blears your black and white pulsating vision. You can feel his heartbeat in the knife, you swear you can-

“Almost there, baby-”

The blade stills as it meets a meaty wall of resistance and you know it’s reached the his heart. Tomura’s body shivers against yours, knife almost fully driven into the thorax now. You try not to think about how much time it must have taken him to study, how much he must have researched avoiding the sternum and the cage of ribs meant to protect the vital muscle if only to force you to bend for him this way.

“You wanna know something fucked up?” He removes his hand from yours, leaving you gripping the hilt for a split second before you yank yourself backwards, sobbing openly as it stays put, stiffly wobbling slightly from the lack of support once you both withdraw. You turn away from the body, smacking into Shigaraki’s chest even as you try to shove him away. He cradles your face, hands crusted with blood tracing the curve of your cheek, smearing your tears across your skin. “He could technically live through this, if I let him. The heart closes punctures on its own if allowed to do so. At least long enough help could get here.” “Please-” You whine, voice cracking and sinuses draining into your throat and clogging your airway in your distress. “Please! We can leave together, we can go wherever you want! Just call him an ambulance and we’ll go. I’ll go with you willingly, we don’t have to-”

“You’ll come with me anyway, you dumb little slut. I don’t think you’re quite grasping what’s happening here.” He seethes behind clenched teeth, fingers twisting in your uniform. “But I guess you have a point. He doesn’t have to die.”

“Please- Please just-” “Convince me then.”

He pushes you down to the floor again, landing on your knees before him. His hand finds the back of your head, grinding your face onto his crotch hard enough you can feel his stiffening cock against the soft of your cheek.

“What? We don’t have time-” “Better hurry then. Tick tock, princess. I didn’t put a whole lot of effort into finding out how long he can survive.”

Nausea curls up in your gut once more but your fingers still find his zipper, shaking and blinking back tears as you unbutton his trousers. You try to ignore the mocking laugher bubbling in his gut as you fish his cock out from the barrier of fabric, hesitating slightly when your fingers close around the velvety skin of his shaft, hot and throbbing to the touch.

“I don’t know what will be a bigger disappointment- if you don’t know what you’re doing or if you do.” He jeers, taking his dick out of your hands only to slap it against the side of your mouth a few times as he yanks his pantline down enough to free himself fully. “I guess we’ll find out. Either way, you’ll catch on to what I like, won’t you? You were always such a quick little learner.”

He doesn’t give you a chance to rebut, shoving the head of his cock past your teeth in a way that seems almost too eager- like a virgin would. You don’t know much about Tomura- had never even really spoken to him before these past few days, but if you had to guess, judging by the way he’s already breathing heavy and looking down at you with manic eyes and sweating profusely from the nape, this is probably the first time he’s ever been touched intimately like this.

“C’mon!- Suck me already-”

It’s not a surprise. He’s brash and rude and a total loner and butted heads with everyone else from the start, and now he’s responsible for countless deaths as well. He probably never found time to woo anyone between his plotting and abhorrent personality. At least it plays in your favor to some degree, since chances are he’ll cum sooner rather than later. The thought of having to take him down your throat makes you sick, but if it’ll save your friend...

You stick out your tongue past your lips, allowing him to slide his length down your throat without obstruction, blinking your bleary doe eyes up at him as you kitten lick his cock. He shivers with every lave of your tongue, his musky scent invading your nostrils as you try to repress your gag reflex to allow him deeper.

“Oh, fuck yes-“

He stutters his hips, rolling them against your face until you’re flush with the course and curly white litany of hairs nested at the base of his pelvis. His musky busk clogs your senses and cloys up your sinuses, but you’re determined to please him- this isn’t about you anymore- so you shove down the disgust and focus on pampering his cock as best as you can given the circumstances.

“Shit- you’re such a little slut for me. Look at you go, taking my fat cock like a pro-“

You purse your lips around him, locking an airtight seal around the base of his prick and covering your teeth with your lips. The edges swell your lips with every bob of your head, but his moans clue you into the fact that you must be doing something right, so you ignore the discomfort in favor of taking him further down your throat instead.

His hand finds the crown of your head again, closing around your scalp and forcing his cock down into the depths of your throat as he shoves you deeper until your lips are practically pressed against his navel. Gagging is inevitable, as he’s not exactly small, but you try to remind yourself to breathe through your nose instead- though the hot, heady air near his groin does you no favors.

“Come on, baby, take my dick- fuck, you’re such a good little whore for me- suck my cock- fuck, such a good girl-“

He’s close, he’s so close you can taste it. The slimy consistency of precum coats your mouth and he’s throbbing against your throat- he’s almost ready to cum, just a bit more, just a bit-

The tangy smell of blood and arousal sits heavy in the air and even as you want to cry, you swallow him further, closing your throat around him and massaging him with the silken cavern of your throat, letting him fuck your mouth to his liking. Drool spills from the sides of your mouth, swollen lips puffed around his shaft, and he looks at you like he’s never seen anything more beautiful in his life.

“Gunna cum- gunna come down your fucking throat- you’ll swallow it all-“ his other hand clumsily slaps against your cheek, massaging your cheekbone with hands still blood-wet. “Take it all, you fucking whore- fuck, so pretty, so pretty, all mine now-“

He throbs and you can feel it, cum spurting from his cock down your throat and into your belly. You almost gag, having to force down the sputters with a red face and weepy, bulging eyes. He doesn’t relent his grip, keeping you stuck on his cock as he moans loud and unabashed enough that it leaves you humiliated even as you know that everyone else in the vicinity too long gone to hear it.

You try to swallow it down, try to stomach it all, but it proves just a bit too much. If you didn’t know better, you’d say he’d been withholding for a while. Tapping his thighs, coughing around his length until he finally has the wherewithal to take the hint, he withdraws from you as you cough up small bits of spittle and cum onto the knees of his jeans and your own mouth. You fall down onto your side, hacking up bits of liquid that clearly went down the wrong pipe as he tucks himself away back in his pants.

He kneels down before you, patting your back in a condescending manner with a sinister, lofty smile. You try desperately to get a word out between convulsions, and it doesn’t help that he’s pulling you to your feet before your vision can clear itself, yanking you up into his arms and over his shoulder with one careless heave.

“You did real good, baby- I can’t wait to fuck that tight little cunt of yours when we get back- You’re so perfect- Fuck that was incredible, everything like I dreamed but better-”

You pound on his back, pointing at your friend. They sit limply, knife still jabbed in their chest. Their skin is a sickly pale color, blood running down and pooling in their lap and absorbing into the fabric of their clothing.

“Call- first- please-”

“Huh?” He looks back at the chair and the body tied down to it, grin faltering slightly. “Oh. They’re gone. Long gone. See?” He turns on his heel, bringing his shoe up to kick at the butt of the knife, lodging it deeper into the corpse with one quick stomp of his shoe. There’s no movement, not even a cry or a whimper or a rattle. “They were already dead. I stabbed them in the back of the neck earlier. It was quick, if that makes you feel better. They didn’t feel a thing-” He pats your ass, giving it a quick smack. “But you sure did, didn’t you?”

You wail and kick and scream, energy renewed as his horrific deception and that sickening feeling in your gut plunging further and further into sick. He only cackles, easily keeping you under control with one hand slung around your waist and his shoulder digging into your gut.

“Good call though. Can’t be leaving the murder weapon behind. Memories of our first kill  together and all.”

He yanks the knife out in one swift movement, body slumping over from the momentum and you see the ghastly wound right at the base of the back of his neck.

He was already dead. He was already dead.

#Morgana and friends #nsft #tw noncon #hot slaughter #lmao #written hastily do not judge me #watch me make up a shitload about anatomy and death because I don't know #stabbing someone in the heart is one of the few things I've never done before

[kyidyl]

Kyidyl Does Archaeology - Part 4

(As before, if you’re only seeing this part 4, the rest of them have the tag KyidylCL)

THE ARTEFACTS

Ok, so I’ve talked about the site and what we’ve been digging in and such, but I’m gonna be honest with you guys: I like lab work exponentially more than field work.  So I am the one who has been processing the vast majority of the finds and ergo have lots of stuff.  That’s why I sometimes make jokes about the stuff in my basement - I’m storing the majority of it here in my basement.  I’ve gotten the question before about ownership, so here is how that works.  The dig is on private land so anything we get technically belongs to the owner of the land.  Now, as far as I know, he has no interest in keeping any of it so it’ll likely end up in the hands of the arch society, who will basically just be custodians of it but not owners.  It might end up in a museum, too.  I don’t really know, but that determination won’t be made until we’re finished, and not by me.  

So every site has its own sort of categories of stuff that you find depending on who lived there (although for ease, archaeologists often categorize this stuff based on location and time - more on that later.).  For our site the majority of it falls into these categories: animal bone, shell, lithics, pottery, charcoal, modern contaminants, and artefacts.  And, to lend a bit of clarity here...lithics are anything made of rock.  So they include fire cracked rocks, flakes from stone tool making, material that was used in construction, material that was crushed to make temper for pottery paste (more on that later, too.), etc.  If it came from a rock it’s a lithic.  

And imma tell you a secret: I hate lithics.  Everyone has their thing, their category of human refuse that they simply do not like.  A prof of mine hated teeth and pottery.  That’s just how it is, and mine is lithics.  I think they’re boring, I can’t tell a flake from a blade, I don’t give a single fuck what material they are, I don’t care about the style or craftsmanship...I just don’t care.  I call them all rocks, and I do it so much that everyone on the site has started accidentally calling them rocks, too, which amuses me.  Rocks, to an archaeologist, means “stone that wasn’t altered or used by people”.  They’re worthless.  Not that I think lithics are worthless - far from it - I just really hate them and this site has so.  goddamned.  many.  Lucky for me, we have a Rock Guy aka someone who really loves lithics and actually has gotten pretty good at flint knapping and just, y’know, is really into rocks.  

And to clarify about artefacts.  When you’re out in the field everything you find is either an artefact or a find.  The collection of these things is called an assemblage.  When you’re doing lab work and sorting through it all later on an artefact is, well...like a thing.  I’m explaining this poorly....it’s a complete object with a specific function.  So, a whole pot = artefact, broken pieces = sherds (not shards, sherds.). Complete arrowhead = artefact, flakes or a broken one = lithic.  Artefacts also tend to be somewhat unique, or at least something you don’t have a lot of.  They don’t always have to be complete, anything that is a specific object can go in here.  Like, for example, this piece of pipe we found: 

To recap, we’ve got pottery, charcoal, lithics, shell, bone (animal - we haven’t found human. But I’m just gonna say bone.), and artefacts.  If you are sensitive to things like that, this is your warning that this post is going to have pictures of animal bone and you should scroll quickly.  

Now, for reference, this is what it all looks like before I clean it and after it’s been dying out for a day or two (the ground has natural moisture, so I basically just open the bags and let them air out.): 

And, yes....I am cleaning them off on an actual antique blotter with real silver edges that my mom gave me for this express purpose.  A factoid I’m only sharing because it amuses me in that sort of “bet they never envisioned this use for this thing” sort of way.  Normally, if I was in a real lab, you’d do this over a metal tray.  When you’re working with an assemblage you never hold it over empty space, you always hold it over the bench and preferably over whatever your work surface is.  That doesn’t mean I haven’t dropped my fair share of stuff anyway, but most of it just lands on the work surface and not the floor, which is why you hold it over a work surface.  But anyway, as you can see, it just looks like a brown, dirty mess.  I usually do a quick sort of the stuff I know for sure what it is and then I wash it with a soft toothbrush and some water.  The rocks I just submerge and swoosh around because they’re rocks and I can’t really damage them and there’s SO FRIKKIN MANY that I refuse to clean them individually.  

So now that you’ve gotten through that long-winded but necessary explanation of terms, where are we at? Since I’m a bioarchaeologist and I prefer things that were once alive to the general detritus of human society, we’re gonna start with the bone.  Specifically, we’re gonna start with how I know those two pits from yesterday’s post are one pit.  This is how: 

This is a deer bone.  Don’t ask me which one bc I’m really not good at ID’ing species and animal anatomy, but it’s a leg bone of some kind.  See how it’s broken? One piece was found in one hole and the other piece was in the other.  Clearly it’s the same animal, ergo the pits are related to each other.  The vast majority of what came out of that particular feature was bone, with the rest being charcoal and the occasional pot sherd.  This means it was probably used for cooking and not as a garbage pit. Also there was food in it, if you recall the cooking accident from yesterday.  but sometimes y’know, stuff falls into the fire pit or it’s put in there as a way of disposing of it.  

But wait, I have more cool animal bones!! 

Ok, so there’s this one: 

This bone has a special place in my heart. IDK what species it is (I *think* it’s a fragment of deer long bone.), but that’s not why it’s cool.  This single bone is strong evidence for the presence of dogs.  =D See that circular mark on the right? That is the impression of a canine tooth from a carnivore.  Human teeth can’t make those marks in bones - our teeth aren’t strong enough to do significant damage to bone, and anyway we tend to crack bones open with rocks (a form of damage called percussion marks.) and not with our teeth.  Those other longer scratch marks are also likely from chewing, not butchery, because they’re in the right places and they’re the right shape.  Now we know this was a settlement, and this bone was found smack in the middle surrounded by human detritus and not on the fringes or outskirts.  There were no domesticated felines in the Americas at the time BC this is from the lower pre-contact level, so what’s really the only carnivore that would be wandering around a human settlement? Dogs.  I love this kinda stuff because it’s so easy see them chilling around the fire pit, talking and eating, teasing whomever it was that spilled dinner, and then tossing the bones to their dogs to gnaw on after dinner.  It’s just such a people kind of thing, you know? All from one small, circular mark.  I actually found more on later bones that came out of other places, so it’s pretty safe to say there were dogs living here with their people even though we have found neither people nor dogs.  

So here’s another cool bone: 

Again, no idea what species it is bc I’m not a zooarch (yes, there are archaeologists that specialize in animals and wooooo boy can they tell you a LOT about migration and eating habits of people.). It’s about the size of half my thumb, IE, not large.  This one is cool, and it’s the only one I have like this, because of that notch you can see vertically in the image on the right hand side.  I don’t know what it was for, but I DO know that it was an intentionally made modification to the bone.  Those striations aren’t natural - natural bone is smooth or has a very specific texture and this isn’t that.  It’s probably not damage done to the bone after it was deposited in the archaeological record.  It has the same patina as the majority of the rest of the bone, which you can compare to the lighter area there on the right hand end of the bone.  That lighter area does not have the patina of age that the rest of the bone does, and is the result of damage in a much more recent time - probably as we were taking it out of the ground.  Small bones are fragile.  So someone gouged this channel intentionally in this bone, either because they were going to use it as decoration or it served some purpose as a tool.  I’m not really sure what though.  Hell, they could have just been bored and fidgeting after eating.  Either way, it’s a human modification to this bone that has nothing to do with cooking or consumption (damage from human consumption is cracks and breaks, not scrapes.).  It could also be a butchery mark, although it’s a bit deep for that.  Butchery marks are there from separation of meat from bone - they’re usually just shallow scrapes.  

Ok, last cool bone I’m gonna show you.  Well, bones, plural.  

Ok so this is part of the same assemblage as the ones above, and if I remember correctly these were the ones that came out of that pit.  You can see the same bone with the canine tooth mark there in the center.  There’s also some interesting things like some pottery on the left and a couple teeth off to the right (one is a deer and I *think* that curved on is a squirrel.), but the really interesting thing is the series of 3 shiny bones that are in the center.  There’s a lot of ways to cook meat, and they all do different things to bones.  You will often find the dry, brown looking ones like you can see here in the non-shiny bones. That’s like...your basic “this bone had meat on it when it was cooked”. Then you’ll see ones that are black, and that’s “this bone probably didn’t have meat when it was cooked, or someone tossed it back in the fire when they were done”. Lastly, you’ll see white bone, and that’s a bone that has been burned at a high temperature for a long time.  Usually it’s done on purpose (you can use burned, powdered bone to make stuff.).  

But the shiny ones were in a soup.  And the reason I know that is *because* they’re shiny.  Bones, especially old ones, aren’t shiny.  I mean...you can see that.  You have to do stuff to ‘em.  And bones are porous, but those weren’t.  They felt like hard plastic. And they get that way by being boiled.  The shiny patina is what we call pot polish - they were stirred in the soup while it was cooking and rubbed against the side of the pot and each other, and it gives them a smoother texture.  

All of these collections of bones tell us what and how they ate things.  I know from what I can ID here (which isn’t everything, trust me.) that they ate a lot of deer and wild turkey (we have an entire almost completely intact turkey long bone.). There is also, I believe, squirrel (I found a portion of a skull and jaw that I’m pretty sure belong to a squirrel), and an assortment of other small rodents and birds.  Lots of birds.  Bird bone is really distinctive, it’s light and the spongy bone has a distinct texture.  A zooarchaeologist can look at bones like this and ID species and age, and from there tell you what time year something was probably killed.  Societies that hunted a lot tended to do it seasonally so that they wouldn’t damage the populations.  Plus especially with fish and stuff they have very specific growing cycles and short lifespans, so they can also tell you a lot about where the people were hunting and when.  Like certain fish will only spawn in certain places, so it’s really informative.  Zooarchs are so important and there just aren’t enough of them.  

Anyway, there are other cool things in the bones but I’m trying to strike a balance here between too much and not enough and I really love bone so I’m going to stop here for today.  Tomorrow is going to be other artefacts (yeah, sadly, even lithics, lol), and what they tell us about the site and the people who lived there.   As an aside: if anyone has any like just general “how do they know this?” sort of questions about history and archaeology those would be fun to answer.  I love to tell people how we do things but I don’t just wanna infodump.  I DO want to explain procedure in what I hope is a readable way because I think understanding how we make the sausage will help people have more trust in science.  So if you have any questions, please, send asks.  If I don’t know the answer I’ll research it or pass it on to someone who does.  

#archaeology #science #bone #animals #native food #native americans #kyidylCL

[ninjago-happens-here]

'Bandages come in many ways. There are gauze bandages, treating all kinds of wounds the Ninja may have. There are bandages used to prevent injury in Martial Arts. What P.I.X.A.L. is wondering, is that if mankind has a bandage for the heart.'

@ninjago-angst-week am I late or what? Sorry but I think spewing out 21k words over teh course of 3 days killed my motivation. It took 3 days just to write 6.1k words.

Summary:

P.I.X.A.L. notices that the store of bandages is running low. She thinks about all the times she had to use them on one of her teammates, and its purposes.

“Hey Pix! We’re running low on bandages. Can you help us order some before we go to Shintaro?” Nya’s voice came from the medical bay of the Destiny’s Bounty. The Ninja and Master Wu were going on a trip to Shintaro. Unfortunately, Pixal never got an invite, but she has long been used to being left behind. It’s not that it was a bad thing, per se. Pixal knew the importance of having a backup, and having someone watch over Ninjago whilst the Ninja were gone. Still, to distract herself after placing a digital order, she thought about anything that could distract her. That thing just happened to be about bandages.

Bandages. Neat, white little things that wrap around any land or sky creature. According to Wikipedia, a bandage is a piece of material used either to support a medical device such as a dressing or splint, or on its own to provide support to or to restrict the movement of a part of the body. When used with a dressing, the dressing is applied directly to a wound, and a bandage is used to hold the dressing in place. Other bandages are used without dressings, such as elastic bandages that are used to reduce swelling or provide support to a sprained ankle. Tight bandages can be used to slow blood flow to an extremity, such as when a leg or arm is bleeding heavily.

At first, that was all P.I.X.A.L. knew about bandages. Given that she was built with the main purpose of being Cyrus Borg’s assistant, her primary knowledge consisted mostly of the ins and outs of Borg Tower, emergency protocols, customer service skills, and basic first aid, given that her maker was frailer than your average Ninjago citizen.

Of course, the longer she worked under Cyrus Borg, the more she learnt about the medical field. Curious about Mr Borg’s special circumstances, she was permitted to look through the internet for more information. In no time at all, she learnt about surgery, prosthetics, all different kinds of medication, and how to diagnose illnesses. In her given free time, she studied all the information available on the internet about the medical field. Even though the information was useless to her, an android who had no physical weaknesses like the humans do, her system determined that whilst the knowledge was a bit excessive, it only helps to prepare her to care for Mr Borg.

She never really needed to apply all that knowledge about serious and fatal cuts, but when Borg gets even the slightest injury, P.I.X.A.L. was there to offer her assistance.

A year after she had been created, Cyrus Borg had offered her to take a test of the field in medicine. P.I.X.A.L. had immediately felt lighter and better somehow. When asking Borg why she was feeling this way and if robots could get sick, Borg had laughed in surprise and shock.

“That feeling is happiness, P.I.X.A.L.! It’s an emotion that all living creatures feel, you included.”

“But I am not living-“ Mr Borg cut her off.

“Technically, you are right, P.I.X.A.L., but you are intelligence, and intelligence is what defines life. You can adapt, change, and overcome as all living beings do. Don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise! Because that would be an insult to my intelligence!” Cyrus Borg said encouragingly. “And robots can technically get sick, from a digital virus. But I created you to be strong, stronger than I ever will be. You should not have to worry about them.”

P.I.X.A.L. nodded her head to show her understanding. “Then I will go to the exam.”

P.I.X.A.L. didn’t pass on her first try, but Mr Borg told her that it was alright, given that she still did very well considering that she only had the free internet to look for answers to a test she was unprepared for. It was human for her to have failed.

“So why did you send me there with no preparation?” P.I.X.A.L. asked with a shaking voice.

“To prepare you for failure, my dear!” Cyrus Borg said patronisingly. “Since I’ve built you, you’ve been perfect in many, many ways. And that isn’t a bad thing! But life isn’t that simple. You may fail in one way or another in the future because like humans, the circumstances may not be what you desired and plans can fall apart due to errors. What I want you to know is how failure feels like, and I will help you recover from it.”

P.I.X.A.L. nodded. It won’t be long before she faced her first, real big failure.

- Lloyd - The first time she had to really apply those skills that she learnt was when the team had seen Lloyd in the village. After he was pulled out of the ocean because he had to escape from an exploding plane that the Digilord had trapped him on. The locals had wanted to help, but Lloyd wasn’t feeling like having strangers cut him up, so they offered him some basic and outdated medical supplies.

P.I.X.A.L. could see him trying to treat himself and to stay awake, and she could see him hiss as the alcohol drizzled on his wounds.

“LLOYD!” Kai shouted in a tone that conveyed panic. This made the young ultimate spinjitzu master look up from his handiwork and immediately break into a smile. As the team had rushed forward to greet him, P.I.X.A.L. could see that his shoulders were sagging, probably from relief.

“I’m so sorry that I got caught guys,” Lloyd wheezed with an apologetic smile before keeling over, to which Cole caught him with shaking hands.

“Oh god, Zane, quick, do your thing!” Kai panicked even harder, hands jittery as if he was in an internal debate about whether he should do something or not.  “I’m trying Kai! I just- my hands keep shaking for some reason!” Zane gritted his teeth in frustration. “I’m gonna run some diagnostics on him” “Okay, Cole, lie him on a flat surface- medic! Medic!” Nya screamed out.

It was at this moment that P.I.X.A.L. knew that was her chance. To repay Zane for his heart. To prove to the team that she was useful. To finally implement her knowledge. Sometimes, she wonders if she’ll ever have what Zane has with the other humans, but for now, she is glad that she can separate her emotions from her work.

“Let me handle it,” P.I.X.A.L. said authoritatively. Running a scan with her own diagnostics, P.I.X.A.L. isolated the most dangerous injuries before telling the group out loud, staring at her apprehensively.

“Master Lloyd has suffered a concussion, lung damage due to smoke inhalation, and fractured bones in his tibia. He also has a sprained ankle and several bones on his upper chest area have several bruises. Luckily, there is no internal bleeding. He also has some first and second-degree burns, but those look like they have been treated by the ocean water. However, he is at risk of hypothermia should he not change out of those clothes. Other cuts and bruises should not be life-threatening as long as we keep the infection away, and-“

“WE GET IT! Can you just PLEASE start treating Lloyd NOW?” Jay shrieked in frustration. P.I.X.A.L. blinked. Oh right, the ninjas are still panicking.

“Apologies, can I have a look at the medical supplies?” Taking a scalpel out of the medical box, P.I.X.A.L. removed Lloyd Garmadon’s shirt and so multiple bruises as well as the look of someone who’s emancipated. It didn’t really make any sense to her, but she supposed that being drained of his elemental powers must have caused some damage.

“To treat his concussion, he needs peace and to rest. I would like if all of you can speak in whispers from now on,” P.I.X.A.L. began. The soup suddenly looked ashamed and guilty, with Jay whispering a soft ‘sorry’.

“To treat his hypothermia, we would need blankets-“

“Why can’t I just warm him up with fire?” Kai cut across. “Well, the extreme heat can damage the skin or, even worse, cause irregular heartbeats so severe that they can cause the heart to stop. However, starting a campfire some meters away could help a little. using this fire, we can make some warm beverages and some food.”

“Just say what we gotta do doc, we’ll listen!” Nya begged swiftly. P.I.X.A.L. thought for a moment, before choosing to sort people out based on their perceived abilities.

“Kai, Jay, Cole, Sensei Wu, and Sensei Garmadon- please look for blankets in the village and start a campfire over there,” Pointing at a spot a satisfactory distance from Lloyd, P.I.X.A.L. continued with giving instructions. “Start making some sort of soup- not too heavy. Zane, Nya- you’re with me.”

Garmadon, who was silent all this time, started to protest. “I cannot leave my son, Pixal.”

“Fine, you may stay and just keep tending to the campfire,” P.I.X.A.L. conceded, not wanting to waste time arguing. There was the matter of fact that the smoke inhaled by Lloyd Garmadon could be fatal, but there was not much that she could do in his location. All she could hope to do was to treat his minor injuries before ensuring that Lloyd is stable enough to go to a hospital in Ninjago. Which would have been impossible, given that the Digilord had control of the city already. What could she do? Maybe there’s an elemental master of the air who could treat Lloyd?

“Pix, do you not have any ideas on how to treat the smoke inhalation?” Zane looked at her with kind and understanding eyes. Pixal nodded, defeated, before preparing a cast. “We need concentrated oxygen and a nose tube or a tube down his throat. Unfortunately, there is nowhere in Ninjago where we can get to such technology.”

Hearing this, Nya immediately perked up. “But we can make them. Zane, do you have any wires that you can spare for a bit?”

“Redirecting power from the right hand,” Zane replied as he opened up his arm to take out a tube. He’s so self-sacrificing. For some strange reason, P.I.X.A.L. felt her heart beating faster. Maybe Zane was nervous? “Nya, if you could please clean this?”

“Of course. HEY KAI!”  “Yeah, sis?”  Nya was looking at P.I.X.A.L. expectantly. Oh yes. she was supposed to know this, wasn’t she? “Can you get us 10 cups of potable water and 1 cup of vinegar? Also, get some detergent or soap.”  “Okay Pix, not gonna question this at all!”

Meanwhile, Nya was using pure H2O to just start blasting the tubing As much as they wanted Lloyd to not die from smoke inhalation, they also didn’t want him to be infected. Speaking of infections…

“Ow!” Lloyd woke up sleepily as Zane used one hand to dab his cuts. Looking sheepish, Zane immediately offered an apology before Nya cuts in and admitting her mistake.

“Go back to Lloyd,” Nya said, petting his hair. Once Kai had returned with the necessary materials, Nya sanitised her hands before delicately cleaning the tube with 10 parts water and 1 part vinegar.

Tightening the wrappings around Lloyd’s ankle, Pixal studied her handiwork. The splint was holding up nicely against Lloyd’s leg, and all the infections on Lloyd’s legs were taken care of. Seeing as Zane is treating Lloyd well enough, P.I.X.A.L. immediately began to start diagnosing Lloyd’s burns before seeing blood flow from Lloyd’s back.

“Oh, dear.” In her hast, P.I.X.A.L. had forgotten to check Lloyd for injuries from behind. Maybe she wasn’t as professional as she thought. There was no other choice. Looking at Zane firmly, they pushed Lloyd onto his side as he gave a pained groan.

P.I.X.A.L.’s mechanical heart sank. Lloyd had a reason for sitting up without any support. There were several pieces of debris stuck to his back, and they were all pushed in due to them lying Lloyd on the desk. Nya looked up from her task in horror.

“I’m so sorry Lloyd, I didn’t know-“ “Nya, please focus on your task,” P.I.X.A.L. cut her off before she could begin crying. She felt bad, but what’s done was done. Blocking Lloyd from’s Nya’s view, P.I.X.A.L. picked up a pair of tweezers before picking up the small pieces. But the large piece of metal stuck in his shoulder blades- Pixal had to cut Lloyd’s skin to get that out. Eyes narrowing, hardening her resolve- P.I.X.A.L. lightly cut Lloyd’s skin using the scalpel before pulling up a long shard of bloodied glass. Picking up some of the unused water, P.I.X.A.L. quickly cleared Lloyd and the flat-surfaced of their blood. Applying pressure to those wounds would be hard from this angle, so after disinfecting the openings, P.I.X.A.L. took several rolls of bandages before tying them around Lloyd’s chest. Not too tightly, that would further bruise his ribs- but tight enough to ensure a sense of security and staunch the oozing bleeding.

“Zane, do you have an oxygen filter?” Nya asked, having been satisfied by the cleanliness of the tubing. Sanitising her metallic hands, P.I.X.AL. heard Zane sigh before declining.

“I do. Mr Borg wanted us to be at least a little environmentally friendly, given that the Nindroids would be using large amounts of energy every day. So I can filter out excess greenhouse gases in the air and store them in their solid form before giving the raw materials back to Borg Industries,” P.I.X.A.L. offered.

“You’re a lifesaver Pix,” Nya said in relief, handing P.I.X.A.L. the tubing. P.I.X.A.L. smiled. She supposed that she actually was. Opening Lloyd Garmadon’s mouth, P.I.X.A.L. inserted the tubing down his throat with NIndroid precision. Connecting the end to her oxygen filter, P.I.X.A.L. adjusted the settings so that she was inputting air composing of at least 60% oxygen into young Garmadon’s lungs.

As Zane finished applying some frost to Lloyd’s burns, the 3 of them stood there and watched as Lloyd breathed in and out.

“If you guys don’t mind, I’ll go find what the guys have been doing,” Nya informed their group. “I too will go into the village, but to ensure that we have permission to stay here for the night,” Zane stated, giving a nod to P.I.X.A.L., before walking away into the dusk, right hand locked and useless.

P.I.X.A.L., knowing that she can’t really move, sat next to Lloyd Garmadon as she watched the campfire grow as shrieks from the ninja team rose. At the end of today, all P.I.X.A.L. wanted to do was to just shut down and recharge. She knows she doesn’t need to know that she had half of Zane’s heart (which just skipped another beat for some unknown reason), but all she wants was a break.

Too bad that being a ninja means that you don’t really get to choose when to stop. P.I.X.A.L. thought to herself.

But at least today, I’ve proved my usefulness. I can repay Zane for his heart.

- Kai - Having been stuck alone, disassembled and scrapped, P.I.X.A.L. found that she really, really missed the Ninja team. She also missed Zane, though he was in a cell next to hers. He’s been offline for such a long time, P.I.X.A.L. had fears that he would never wake up.

But he did. And the ninja had rescued them from Chen. But along the way, they had lost Sensei Garmadon, and the year apart had caused some major issues.

Kai doesn’t know that they’re here. But he shouldn’t be here either after Zane had ordered that everyone go to rest after this long day. Still, the glint of red from his eyes even scared P.I.X.A.L., but she would never tell anyone that. She watched as Kai shredded the bandages he wrapped around his hands by destroying a metal training dummy, before turning around to wrap some more.

“Why is he doing that?” P.I.X.A.L. wondered from inside Zane’s head. Zane started whispering, “He… has some anger issues.”

“I get that Zane, I mean why’s he wrapping his hands in bandages?” P.I.X.A.L. corrected herself. Zane quirked an eyebrow but continued with answering P.I.X.A.L.’s questions. “Well, martial artists wear hand wraps and bandages because they can prevent injuries and improve the power of their punches. Wraps and bandages also protect the martial artist’s skin and soften the impact on hard surfaces.”

“I see,” P.I.X.A.L. stated whilst both of them cringed, as Kai delivered a particularly hard blow to the metallic dummy that Zane was supposed to fight with.

“KAI, PLEASE SHUT UP!” came Jay’s voice from down the corridor, moving closer towards them. Zane and P.I.X.A.L. watched in apprehension as Kai breathed heavily, staring down the metallic dummy before all the tension from his shoulders sagged.

The Nindroids watched as Kai cleaned up the training room and head out to use the bathroom to wash up.

“He’s being too hard on himself for the death of Lloyd’s father,” P.I.X.AL. commented blandly. Zane shifted from his position. “I’m afraid that that’s not the only reason. Do you remember Jay telling us that Kai had almost killed both Lloyd and Skylor using Chen’s staff?” P.I.X.A.L. stayed silent.

Bandages come in many ways. There are gauze bandages, treating all kinds of wounds the Ninja may have. There are bandages used to prevent injury in Martial Arts. What P.I.X.A.L. is wondering, is that if mankind has a bandage for the heart.

- Jay - It was only a few days after Master Wu had been lost in time. Whilst the Ninja team were recuperating and in shock, Pixal has been remotely using Samurai X to patrol the cities whilst maintaining in the current Ninja’s headquarters- the electronic system of Yang’s temple. P.I.X.AL. had really wanted to go full into Samurai X, but she knew that she could not just desert her teammates at this moment. But there wasn’t much she could do, other than counting reps for Lloyd. (You skipped a number, I know what you’re doing Pix, and I ain’t gonna stop training-) helping Jay prepare breakfast (Jay! The pancakes are burning!) or accompanying Zane as he retrieved bits and pieces from all the fighting. (Someone has to clean up Ninjago city, and I guess that that would be me and Samurai X.)

P.I.X.A.L. knew that she shouldn’t be keeping Samurai X a secret, but she couldn’t help herself. She felt a strange sense of duty, and the ability to finally be on the front lines, fighting the same enemies as Zane. And she wanted some secrets to herself.

Still, it surprised her when Jay had demanded her full attention during one of her free times.

“Hey, umm… Pix? Do you- do you think you could maybe check out my left eye?” Jay stammered whilst twiddling his fingers. Pixal was curious, but she’s already moved to Jay’s laptop. “Why do you ask so? Did your eye get hit sometime recently?”

Jay had flinched at the word ‘hit’, but shook his head at the word ‘recently’. Huh. Maybe it was phantom pains? Still, Pixal had run a diagnostic on it.

“I can’t seem to find any physical abnormalities, but if this is a case of phantom pain, over the counter pain relievers should work.”

Jay nodded whilst his eyes were blank seemingly off to another world or lost in his memories.

“Jay? Jay, can you hear me?” Pixal once again ran a diagnostic scan. It seems that Jay was slipping into dissociation. Dimming the lights in his room as well as all the screens the blue ninja had put into his room. Pixal started playing a calm Ninjago lofi mix from the speaker she was in. She gently called Jay’s name and he slipped back into reality.

“Jay, just take 2 doses of ibuprofen. They’re at the lowest shelf at the kitchen counter. If it hurts again, tell me and we’ll bring you to a professional.”

Jay who was nodding at the instructions froze at the thought of being taken to the hospital. Still, he slid off his bed and made his way downstairs. Pixal filtered through the electronic system of the temple, landing new the smart fridge and watched as Jay swallowed 2 pills dry.

It seemed to create some results because Jay stopped shivering and shaking. Pixal wondered if that was just a placebo or an actual effect. Still, watching Jay’s face relax in bliss, free from whatever pain that was bothering him, Pixal knew that she made the right call.

- Nya - S9, fight with SOG

It had been brutal. Pixal was just treating the training injuries Lloyd had when Skylor came into the noodle house, helping Nya to walk as her left arm dangled without any purpose. Immediately, Pixal stood up and took quick strides, scanning Nya for all her injuries.

“We were getting supplies when a bunch of Harumi’s goons jumped on us, we had to be quick so that none of them could call up for back up, when-“  “When- fuck, when this dude pulled out a fucking gun,” Nya said, pained and heaving as Skylor slowly helped her to sit on the training mat.

“So you were shot?” Lloyd’s voice came from behind Pixal as he took the medkit to the mat. Nya eyes looked everywhere but at him. Gesturing to her limp and bleeding arm, she gave up all her dignity. “Yeah, right here.”

“Okay, Nya, here, take these.” Lloyd handed her 2 tablets of ibuprofen and a cup of water. “W-what? No, I can’t take these!” Nya hissed in pain.

“Yes, you can!”  “What if we need them later? What if one of us loses an arm or something happens where we have a worse injury?” “That does not matter, Nya. Look, I’ve been shot in Ninjago city before, I know how it feels.”

Pixal immediately flashes back to the nights where she had to help Lloyd through a computer screen, and her metallic fingers curled up. It was horrible, watching him choking down painkillers before trying to pull the bullet out himself. Never again.

“Nya, it would be alright, just take these- we can always go out to get more,” Pixal tried coaxing Nya to just swallow the pills.

“Take them or I’ll force you to take them, Water Ninja.” Skylor admonished. With the combined strength of their motley crew of 3, Nya hesitantly reached for the medicine, almost choking as she had swallowed too much water at one go.

“Okay, good, now we just need to pull the bullet out,” Lloyd reached into the medkit, pulling out a pair of tweezers. Pixal watched as his hands, fatigued from all the trains, couldn’t stop shaking.

“Wait, Lloyd, let me see if the bullet should be removed at all.” Pixal interrupted, taking a more in-depth scan at Nya’s shoulder. In the meantime, Lloyd started to check through Skylor, who said that he was all clear except for a few knuckle bruises. Of course, Pixal would check on her later, but now she had to make sure that Nya would be alright.

“The bullet has missed your major arteries and it actually isn’t in too deep, possibly because of the protection offered by your suit-“ “Just tell me when you’re gonna remove it!” Nya snapped as her brow furrowed in anticipation.  “Well, let’s see… first, we need to remove the clothing around the area of the wound, which-“

“AHH!” Nya shrieked as Pixal twisted and pulled out the bullet without any warning. “Sorry Nya, sometimes fear of a thing could be greater than the actual danger that it poses,” Pixal explained as Nya stared at her with a look that could only scream betrayal.

Dropping the bullet to the ground, Pixal took up some disinfectant and sanitised the area around the entry wound. Nya hissed as Pixal gently presses a cotton gauze to stop the bleeding before finally applying some sort of disinfectant cream. She finished off the wound with a bandage around Nya’s arm, with extra padding using gauze at the point where the wound is at.

“Alright, so now you should not move this arm too much for the next few days, and in the next few weeks, you would not be able to raise it over your shoulder. But in a few months, you can use it again and in a year it would be pretty much healed up so that you may do your weight lifting sessions with- with Cole again…” Pixal said, starting brightly but dropping to a small whisper.

The mood suddenly went from cheery to depressive. “Remember to take lots of rest,” Pixal finished lamely. As Lloyd escorted Nya to the sleeping bags they had gathered, Skylor picked up the bullet Pixal had removed.

“Girl, you were quite mean back there,” Skylor began. “And I think that you’re cool. One problem- the pharmacies have not been able to continue business as normal. All the drugs have to be given to the Sons of Garmadon. In the meantime, all supply chains are disrupted. Over the counter medicine won’t be so easy to find. “

Pixal kept quiet. “Well, I’ll have to keep this bullet as a souvenir for Nya. FSM knows that she deserves this.”

Of course, the bullet would be lost later as they were hunted down throughout the city. But every time Nya changed into her swimsuit, Pixal could see the bullet wound. The scarring left wasn’t pretty, but Pixal thought that the courage Nya showed made her the most beautiful woman she’ll ever have the chance to meet.

- Cole-  Cole was alive. Cole was alive!

Pixal watched as the Ninja went into a momentary stop before cheering and becoming more alive. She saw Nya pass the Scythe of Earth to Cole, who promptly swung it into the oncoming Oni. Pixal was trying her best to fend off the Oni herself, but her mind, or rather, motherboard, was spinning really, really fast. How did Cole survive? It should have been impossible!

Pixal heard that Cole justify his survival, stating that the Oni clouds must have broken his fall. He didn’t know how he wasn’t attacked at first, but many tendrils then came to attack him.

Still, this was impossible for Pixal to figure out. Was it because Cole had been a ghost? Maybe it was his elemental power protecting him? Or perhaps it was divine intervention? Either way, Pixal was going o scan him later if there was even a later.

“Watch out!” Pixal saw a blast of green hit the Oni in front of her. I can’t afford to get lost in thought now! Come on Samurai X, focus! She chided to herself.

Yet, as the battle once again turned tides, and the elemental masters got together to do the Tornado of Creation, Pixal watched from her position behind the holding doors to see Lloyd Garmadon get thrown out of the tornado, hitting his head with an earth-shattering crack as he collapsed against the walls of the monastery before debris-covered him.

Frantically approaching him, Pixal saw out of the corner of her eye that the rest of the ninja were left dizzy, exhausted, and possibly some having passed out. That was alright. It was time for her to do her duty anyways.

However, whilst lifting slabs of concrete, Pixal felt her heart drop. The calculated survival rate of the impact sent shivers down Pixal’s circuits as the percentage just kept. Dropping. Lower.

Heaving the last piece of concrete off the young bearer of green power, Pixal heard her teammates rushing into the scene. She could have warned them, said something, said anything. But her joints were frozen in place with something much colder than what her sensors had detected when she went into the Oni cloud.

The motley crew, now only 5, took the last piece of debris off from their teammate.

“Lloyd. Buddy, wake up,” Kai pleaded, desperate.  “He-He's not moving!” Nya exclaimed, voice shaking as tears start to form. She looked at Pixal, asking for anything, anything at all.  “Someone find Wu. Where���s Wu?” Cole ordered.

In no time, Master Wu arrived and lifted Lloyd’s arm, checking his pulse. He would find nothing there.

“You can do something, right? Right?!” Jay panicked.  With a defeated look that Pixal knows is mirrored in her eyes, Wu shook his head and said, “There’s nothing to be done.”  Nya finally cries out, sobbing. “Oh, Lloyd!”

PIxal wanted to cry as well, but she never could. When rebuilding her body, she had used the same blueprints that Cyrus Borg had with some upgrades. One thing she didn’t consider adding was the ability to cry because there wasn’t any time. She had to save Lloyd from the vermillion. But what she can’t save Lloyd from, was from an early- early- d… fate.

There’s nothing Pixal could do. And she felt hopeless.

She watched from the corner of her eye as Garmadon backed away from their small group, and in a flash, she felt her wires burning. She couldn’t just let him leave. Not after what he’s done.

Yet, just as she was about to boost straight towards the Oni and tackle him off the mountain, Lloyd started to cough. Lloyd. Started to cough.

Whipping around to see a golden petal float away, she watched the team cheer as Lloyd started to breathe. How- this was impossible!  Pixal almost short-circuited from shock. There had been no way! No way! She didn’t even go through all 5 stages of grief yet.

And not too soon, Lloyd woke up from a sleep that she was sure that he never would.

Catching him mumbling something about the First Spinjitzu Master, Pixal smiled. Divine intervention had definitely happened at least once today. The first time being….

“Cole, please come with me to the med bay,” Pixal requested with a smile. Divine intervention or not, five-sixths of the Ninja team knows how to hide a serious injury, and she had to be certain. Cole, who looked shopped, resigned himself and walked with Pixal o the medical centre. For now, she trusted that Zane was doing all the scans that he could to make sure that Lloyd was right in the head, and sought out to take care of her own, albeit selfish, worries.

Scanning Cole on both sides, Pixal noticed a particular bad bruise on Cole’s spine. Yet falling from that height and the fact that Cole isn’t paralysed due to spinal injury made Pixal reaffirm her theories that the First Spinjitsu Master was alive, just in another realm.

“You know, Lloyd might have actually seen the First Spinjitsu Master,” Pixal began, which led Cole to choke on the water he was ordered to drink. “No way, he must have just hit his head hard…”

“I’m sorry Cole, but the injuries you have is comparable to sleeping on a rock hard bed for one night, not falling from a height of 500m, even if your fall was broken by the Oni cloud, you should still have been paralysed,” Pixal explained.

“So God is real and Lloyd’s sharing a fourth of his blood? Neat! Next time tell him to not scare us with a fake-out,” Cole brushed it off.

At this time Pixal was about the shutdown and delve deep into theorising. Lloyd technically had a fourth of his grandfather’s blood and possessed the same power, could he possible have powers that control life and death-

Yet, she watched as a steady stream of Ninja enter the medbay, and resolved her thoughts to her inner GPU. She can think later. For now, she had to make sure that everyone is okay, and everyone will be okay. Even if she threatens Loyd to shave his head so she can get a better look at his skull, to which a chase around the monastery ensued. Her family was alright for now, and the concerning mortality of humans was left deep in the recesses of her mind.

- Zane - Too soon, Pixal had to face her own mortality. Being a Nindroid, her lifespan would naturally be much longer than a Ninja’s. But she still could be erased, dismantled, destroyed, sent to another realm-

The days waiting for the group of 6, not 5, to come back were some of the hardest. Even though all Pixal wanted to do was to shut down, lie on her bed and stare into the picture they had taken on their first date, Pixal knew that the team was entrusting her to keep Ninjago safe. Even if it means recapturing escaped convicts. Even if it means fighting the… undead-dead Preeminent (Pixal still hasn’t figured out how she worked). And they had to find ways to reach the Never Realm, by going through different infusions of travellers tea.

Yet, all the waiting and longing was worth it. Pixal prefers a Zane stuck in another realm for 40 years as to no Zane. There was no other choice. Yet, as she sees her loved ones trudging out of the frosty realm, some of them had worst frost bites than others. Even though all Pixal wanted to do was to smother Zane in a hug, she can see the edges of Lloyd’s skin turning a deep, dark black. From the corner of her eyes, she can see Nya taking care of Cole whilst Jay and Kai attempt to remove the ice from everyone else, including lubricating Zane’s frosted joins. She had not a single moment to lose. This kind of frostbite was not exactly lethal immediately, but losing limbs could mean the end of Lloyd’s ninja career. So calling everyone to attention, she went all in to salvaging Lloyd’s limbs, doing everything she could.

Later that night, Pixal spotted Zane wandering around the outskirts of the monastery whilst the Ninja finish up dinner. She watched as Zane’s hands gripped the staff so tight that the wood would be snapping in 3…2…1.

A harsh crack and splinters flying out later, Pixal could see the shaking in Zane’s hands as he cursed, something that the Zane she knew never would.

For her, it had been a hellish week. But for Zane? It must have been a hellish 40 years.

“…Zane?” Pixal called out from the monastery doors. Zane immediately whipped around before pointing the tip of the staff towards her, to which Pixal reflectively grabbed. Zane, eyes widening in shock and horror, immediately released his grip on the now shorter staff, before turning around, trying to run away. Pixal won’t let that happen.

“Zane,” Pixal said once again, hand now gripping onto the collar of Zane’s Gi. “Please don’t run away from me.”

Zane, froze, hands twitching before dropping them to his side. Pixal released her grip before tapping Zane on the shoulder, asking him to turn around.

“Pixal, I’m- I’m sorry…I just can’t- I can’t trust myself right now,” Zane vented out hands fidgeting with each other. Pixal smiled sadly. She knew that not everything could go back to normal so fast, but still, she had hoped that it would have been easier than this. “If you don’t trust yourself right now, why not spend some time with me?”

“Pixal- I…I could hurt you-“  “Yes you can, but don’t think that I can’t protect myself,” Pixal snapped back whilst carefully reaching to hold Zane’s hands. Once she made contact, Zane flinched back, before slowly reciprocating the action. “C’mon Zane, let’s go back into the monastery-“

“No!” Zane protested, wrenching Pixal back. Pixal clasped her other hand on top of Zane’s. “Not to the dining room. I’m thinking med bay.”

Pixal could see Zane’s processing unit cycle through his thoughts, noticing that it had considerable frost damage. Before long, Zane nodded his head, allowing Pixal to pull him into the light.

Opening the cupboards, Pixal took out a few rolls of bandages before carefully wrapping them around Zane’s hands. The ice ninja watched with curiosity as Pixal carefully finished tying and tightening the strips of cloth.

“Why are you doing this? You and I both know that Nindroids don’t need bandages,” Zane asked. Pixal smiled, looking at Zane’s now steadier hands. “Maybe bandages can’t fix our metal skin, but it still makes us feel better.”

Zane paused, looking down at his hands. “I don’t know how you’re right PIx, but they do make me feel more sure that my powers won’t hurt anyone accidentally. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Now let’s get back to dinner, we have some desserts to bring out.”

Bandages. As much as PIxal uses them and finds them efficient, she can’t help but hope that team doesn’t need to use as many. But this time, t’s just a trip to a legendary city full of peace and prosperity. Maybe this time, Pixal doesn’t need to bandage their wounds away.

#ninjago #ninjago fanfiction #ninjago angst week #ninjago angst week 2021 #ninjago pixal #pixal borg #ninjago zane #zane julien #ninjago lloyd #lloyd garmadon #ninjago kai #kai smith #ninjago jay #jay walker #ninjago nya #nya smith #ninjago cole #cole brookstone #ninjago borg #cyrus borg #ninjago cyrus borg #other minor characters not tagged #haha im so late