#and it sang to my lizard brain

[probably-a-plant-thing]

family meeting

#texas chainsaw massacre #bubba sawyer #chop top sawyer #nubbins sawyer #drayton sawyer #i saw this on pinterest #and it sang to my lizard brain

[mtgc858]

Part 2!

Most likely cause I'm brain dead but yippie!

—————————————————————

Swingy

He's the loud hyper one of the group that would wake everyone up with pans to either annoy them or wake them up early for breakfast.

He is the brother of Kevin and KC Glow.

He's a loud hyper dude that loves his bros and music.

Legit will sing old 80 songs while driving.

D.Ivaders

A game console that is alive lol idk.

Maybe another mascot of the band lol.

Doo Doo

Another creature/mascot that also is KC Glows childhood friend.

He started off as a childhood toy but turned into a living creature (somehow we don't know but probably Aliens)

Is a firby, not headcanon just fact.

He's very gentle and far nicer then most people think of him at first.

8-bit

A 2d videogame Charater that got taken out of his game by a alien(not MJ btw) and now lives in the real world)

It took him awhile to get use to the 3D world and the new friends he got and slowly is making himself 3D in appearance.

He can only make 8-bit sounds at the moment but is learning English and how to talk.

KC Glow

THE BOY HIMSELF, Is the sunshine of the group and the kindest one of them,he is the youngest also and innocent.

A creature 100% (Inspired by @0xeyedaisy , more overly a kind of dragon(my design).

He dyes his claws to match his brothers coloring and has Kevins diamond tear mark and Swingys triangle earring as face paint markings on his face.

He's besties with everyone on the group and knows how to cheer them up.

Use to be a huge fan of the band when a bit younger and when his older brother Swingy joined as he got to meet El Cool P which made his day, before El Cool P then let him on the group right there and completely shocked him and made him super happy lol

El Cool P

I got a lot for this man LMAO)

The man himself, he's the lead singer and leader of the band, he's a bit confident about himself and like he said in the song "I'm a star" and he is.

He loves the attention and fans as he enjoys signing autographs,even some of the other bands autograph at times before he was told off about it lol.

Even though he has a bit of a ego, he does care about the others and has comforted them a lot before, he especially has a soft spot for KC Glow and sees him as a younger brother he never got but keeps it deep inside.

He doesn't like when others sees him upset or down cause he doesn't want others to worry about him especially cause he wants to be seen in a better light, not in a dark lit room crying.

Made the band to show his love for music,80's theme and robots.

Rarely takes his hat off, also has straight long hair but keeps it tied up mostly under his hat.

Loves lizards and dinosaurs.

Has ADHD(self Incert)

Memphis

The seemingly quiet guy at first but very hyper and loud when you know him.

Can't control his volume when talking(like me) and can be very loud when talking(like me).

A backup singer for El Cool P and sometimes sings his own parts in some of their CDs.

He sang URFO in the au and did the music video lol just it was hard to tell lol.

Jogg D

The oldest of the group and the dad figure for most of them.

He is plus size and a cuddly dad.

Has a calm gentle voice when singing and humming.

Swagtastic

Scooter

Chaotic, the most chaotic of everyone in the group, mostly cause he would most definitely have Peanuts voice and personality from Jeff (forgot his last name but the guy with the puppets lol).

Will laugh at your pain.

The loudest of them and the most overwhelming.

Has either a panting laugh, a loud gasp laugh or a wheezing laugh depending on the situation.

Is easy to get angry and pick fights.

Lil Blaze

Chill,cool,epic man.

He is besties with KC Glow especially with the fact Lil Blaze knows about KC's pretty eyes then the rest(besides his brothers of course).

Is Scooters twin brother despite not being identical.

Can speak Spanish for the group if they need a translator or a angry mom figure to tell them to shut up lmao.

And that's all! Phew that was a lot but worth it!

#my au #my headcanons #incredibox #incredibox headcanond #incredibox v9 #incredibox wekiddy #wekiddy

[super-marihoes]

I haven't been drawing recently and I don't want to abandon this blog lmao so here's some headcanons. (Its mostly the bowser family)

CW: cursing and inappropriate themes

Bowser:

He wears dad glasses 👓

He's bisexual

He was a fucking menace before Junior was born, probably ran from the cops

Architecture nerd

He's got sinus issues (based on lil snotty bowser from yoshi's island)

Probably gets pegged because hes a simp

Peach:

She's also bi

Monsterfucker

The kidnappings are a publicity stunt bc she and Bowser wouldn't be allowed to be together otherwise

She was scared to be a mom at first but adopted Junior and is a proud Mama

Loves sweets

Shes peach shaped and I'm dying on that hill

Junior:

That kid has undiagnosed ADHD

Ligitimately didn't know what a mom was before Peach

Prefers to be called Junior

He has no biological mom, he was made by magic on accident

He's super smart for his age

Luigi:

That boy is gay, and i really do believe that

He and daisy have gay/lesbian solidarity

He knows about the kidnappings and the true reason behind it

Very trustworthy king

Polterpup made him less scared of ghosts

Always had an interest in the paranormal but was too scared to pursue it before Luigis Mansion

Gets overshadowed by Mario but doesn't really care

Mario:

Im gonna be honest i dont like him too much

He and Pauline are secretly together after Odyssey

The games are actaully his retelling about what happened and are sort of exhaggerated

He's actually a terrible plumber

He's got a big ego but he's working on not being an asshole

Daisy:

Thats a lesbian if I've ever seen one

In my brain she's hispanic

She's Peach's bestie and Junior's Auntie

Lives all sports and gets WAY too into it (shes just like me fr)

Bowser's golfing buddy

Scares men

Rosalina:

Shes trans 🏳️‍⚧️

Loves big ole sweaters

She, Daisy, and Peach have tea parties all the time

Some books and a cup of tea is her ideal night

Collection of big crazy earrings

Pauline:

Valentina ALLY!

She sang at Peach and Bowser's reception

Something primal inside of her wants to peg the shit out of Mario

They were exes but got back together

She said "i can fix him" but actually kinda does

Is the one that eventually tells Mario that Peach is getting sloppy toppy from a lizard

Kamek:

Who is that little gay man in the blue robe?

He's kinda crazy

He unofficially adopted Bowser

They have a very distant relationship, Kamek spoiled him with things but wasn't there very often in the emotional area (thats why hes yk like.... that)

Has a "foxy grandpa" t shirt

The Koopalings (im doing them all together):

They're Bowser’s distant family but he treated them like his niblings after their parents passed away

Ages in this order: Ludwig, Roy and Morton (twins), Wendy, Iggy, Lemmy, Larry

Ludwig and Wendy have gay/lesbian hostility (affectionate)

They each have their own instrument that they excell at

Instruments go: Ludwig- piano, Roy- bass, Morton- drums, Wendy- clarinet, Iggy- ukulele, Lemmy- the motherfucking banjo, Larry- lumatone (hes gotta be quirky and different)

Lemmy talks in sign language

Morton has brain damage (hes just like me fr)

Toadsworth:

Hes old

Took care of Peach after her parents died

He micromanages everything Peach does

He knows that his daughter is getting dicked down on the kidnappings but is in denial

DE NILE IS A RIVER IN EGYPT YOUR DAUGHTER IS A MONSTERFUCKER

He comes through in the end and supports their relationship

Thats all :)

#super mario #bowser #princess peach #bowser jr #powser #luigi #princess daisy #the koopalings #ludwig von koopa #roy koopa #morton koopa jr #wendy o koopa #iggy koopa #lemmy koopa #larry koopa #headcanons #these are kind of crazy

[valsnonsense]

Prince Hatchet

“Is it weird that I don’t really like to get wet? I may be half Techno, but I live in the desert! Don’t do cold and wet, no sir! You won’t catch me dead swimmin’ for fun… is that weird?”

Parents: Prince Riff and Councillor Synth

Siblings: Viper (Younger Brother), Lantern (Younger Sibling)

Age: 20

Pronouns: He/Him

Sexuality: Demisexual/Biromantic

Genre: Country Rock/Hard Rock

Voice Claim: Gary LeVox (Rascal Flatts)

The eldest son of Prince Riff and Councilman Synth. Suave, easy-going, if not a bit aloof, Hatchet prefers to spend his time laying back in a hammock while strumming his guitar, singing sad love songs.

Hatchet is the lead guitarist and singer in a country rock band called Mischief Flats, consisting of him, three country trolls, and one pop troll. Hatchet fell in love with country music on his first visit to Lonesome Flats, and later began to mix it with rock music. He spent a lot of his time performing in Lonesome Flats, where he caught the attention of several other trolls, and eventually formed a band.

When he isn’t performing or practicing, Hatchet is lazing about. Despite how dedicated he is to his band and career, outside of that, he’s a bit of a lazy oaf. He hates work of any kind, preferring to spend his time napping or reading. His popularity gets him many invites to social events and parties, which he usually declines. Can’t chill with an ice cold peach tea if he’s at some bar hyping up groupies, now can he?

As stated above, Hatchet is a Country-Rock troll. He loves how heartfelt and sad country music is, and wanted to see what it’d sound like with a few guitar riffs. He spends a lot of his spare time brain-storming new song ideas, and often finds them by reading sad romance novels.

Hatchet is very close with his family, and was super grateful when they were so supportive of his music-career. He loved playing the guitar for his younger siblings when they were kids, and often sang them lullabies.

Hatchet currently resides in Lonesome Flats, but can be found frequently in Trollstopia visiting family.

Fun Facts!

- Hatchet is a huge bookworm, specifically for sad romance novels. He actually asked Clay for recommendations once, while led to him walking out of a gathering with a pile of about ten books in his arms. He read every single one, and bawled during each.

- Hatchet may be half Techno, but he doesn’t like getting wet. His Rock genes are more prominent in him, leading to him having the more lizard-like skin, which is resistant to water. He can swim and such, but the texture of being wet just makes him uncomfortable.

- Hatchet was raised in Trollstopia, but moved to Lonesome Flats when he reached adulthood to be closer to his bandmates, who all lived in Lonesome Flats. He was sad to leave his dads and siblings, but they were very supportive of him moving to pursue his career. Papa Synth shed the most tears when he left, Hatchet was his first baby after all

And that’s Hatchet, the first of my Rynth babies (Riff/Synth ship name figured out yay!). I based Hatchet and his siblings designs on those crazy fluorescent lizards that can fan out their skin, and his name is actually based off a bioluminescent fish, the marine hatchetfish! Hatchet is also the troll I accidentally gave too much fucking rizz. Like look at the man. He could pull a bunch of hotties if he wanted to slkfjdlsk. And why country rock? I was listening to life is a highway when I was designing him xD

Edit: OH! Forgot to mention, he's a prince cuz in this AU, Riff is Barb's younger brother the prince of rock

Voice Example: Life Is A Highway (Rascal Flatts)

#dreamworks trolls #trolls #trolls oc #trolls the depths au #myart #digital art #trolls rynth #trolls hatchet #why did I give him so much rizz #I don’t know the fuck happened to me when I designed him xD #also Miles is SUPER jealous that Hatchet managed to grow a goatee #mans been trying for YEARS with no success and Hatchet didn’t even try #Hatchet might be a liiiiitle smug about it #just a bit #Spotify

[taechnological]

(from actor lee sang yeob's instagram)

so my lizard brain can conclude only two things from this picture:

actor jin

taejin golf date

#thank u *bows* #seokjin #bts on instagram #jin

[parsleyrosemarybotch]

11 12 and 17 for the music asks?

-teslacoils&hubris

11: A song I never get tired of?

Easy- Bitter boogie by King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard; specifically I really enjoy the live jam they did of it in 2021 it ruled.

12: a song from my pre-teen years?

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh thinking very hard but the only thing that comes to mind is All The Things She Said by T.a.T.U. I donno the amvs did something to my brain

17: A song I would sing Duet with? Okay so there's this terrible running joke between me and my fiance where I play Honkey Tonk Badonkadonk by Tracy Atkins because I love yo torture him with terrible music from my childhood. Recently for his birthday I did a group karaoke with him and a couple of friends and we all sang it together lol

#music asks

[skwonkk]

Her Second Autobiography

False memories tell the brain something else.

Maybe memories will come together or the person will remember and appreciate you.

I was there in 2007 and I remember 5 trees with cute but slightly fanciful names. The Grace Point Puppy Hearts observation deck is located behind the lush gardens. Or suppose there are lizards around the pizza, overheated by puppy hearts.

If I do nothing - 7 In the snow, a woman tries to find a black pigeon at the university. The squirrel's name is Oreo. The statue of a gray dove was so dark that he recognized Didus. I had to have her walking around campus like a bunch of lunatics, compared to the grayness of the road that gave the world more legitimacy.

Since the theme was the sea, the teacher sang a cappella about the sea, so there were lots of props.

Like maple leaf talcum powder, go for white Radcliffe and create a Halloween look. They remember the scary face that scared them because I had to look like a "cat" as a masked clown. It started with me and Alison, but there were also vampires. I've been living mostly adult music for years, but I can't get rid of it. Dad sometimes eats sweets and follows me. ○ Treatment.

I made friends in the summer and talked all day in our secluded cabin, reading naked when Maggie was little, the little ones fascinated me too, except. We talk about it on YouTube. Say "Bangs" on YouTube. In My Little Pony Adventure, she thinks she's getting old, but she's soon embarrassed. You may be the king of the net, but the soul of the net king probably sent beer to the user who posted that user's video.

Most of the 8 pictures I seriously draw sometimes aren't people, but one day I tried and drew an 8 in my head.

It's been a while since I've been there, but it's great.

Last holiday I decided to play Christmas music in class. Remember, we can have a house

I know my name is April Ellison. The old man rests there. Few people are happier than my father. His name is Cycle. Lots of memories on Tumblr.

I started my career when I wanted to make cartoons, even if they were fake.

If the food is not dirty, I try to be busy even if there are leftovers. Even if I didn't feed him, he would rest.

Vesna Mess finally got help, I wish I needed it, but I'm not that strong, I'm overweight, I thought I needed a thief, not a volunteer meeting, and I thought this was our story, and I was very curious and in what is happening in the room even though my parents were not there. Yes, as I said before getting into shape, I do a lot of physical work. Really or not, I will not take this woman with her mother. Universal rights to food support the ultimate ethical diet.

Some people call it a hallucinogen, but that name is crazy poison, and I guess it's back because it makes a poison that's supposed to be a tooth. She became a virgin at a young age. The house is beautiful and full of charm when you are not home.

[tewwor-a]

✧･ﾟ test muse starter call ( accepting ) | @debtwon​ ･ﾟ✧

Two dosirak, two samgak gimbap, and, of course, two konjac jellies ( grape and peach ). Having forgone the help of a basket, Seojun carefully arranged everything securely within the cradle of both arms. Crinkly triangular plastic towards the crook and flimsy boxes firm in the clamp of each hand hand.

Strategic, haphazard – good enough to last them a trip to the cashier. Well, that was the intention, at least. Any sort of thought vanished when he rounded an aisle and saw a vaguely familiar face. 

 "Sang-woo?” Seojun asked, surprise quickly melting away when recognition flickered to life. “Ah— it is you!” He has to peer over the rim of his glasses — damn bifocal lenses fucked with everything, he swears. “ Hey, mister cool style, been a while.” 

#closed starter #* // cho sang-woo – interaction . #* & han seojun // test . #// mmmmhmhm my lizard brain pulled from some.. vague memory of business sw if i remember correctly?????????? #// so this could be set then if youd like! #// would also mean hes working as a pi!

[rynnaaurelius]

Re-reading The Red Pyramid for fic purposes and I swear to god, every time I re-read the Nashville sequence, my brain shorts out at this line:

"Dad loves blues and jazz, mostly, but he said Elvis was important because he took African American music and made it popular for white people. He helped invent rock and roll."

(for those who don't know: the history of Elvis's music and rock 'n' roll in the white mainstream is. . . complicated, to put it nicely. Most infamously, he made the song "Hound Dog" famous after stealing it off of Black singer Big Mama Thornton, who it was originally written for and first sang it. She gained very little profit off of Elvis covering it)

Anyway, I always forget Carter gets turned into a lizard here and Sadie promptly goes, "Curse your lizard brain, Carter," when she realizes they're surrounded and it's her turn to save their asses.

(The give-and-take between whose turn it is to save the day is both really good in writing them as equals and, considering how often they wind up in deep shit, very, very funny)

Also, it's really hard to get through this chapter and not have the image of Julius, still fresh off of Ruby's death and Sadie left in England for her own good, taking tiny Carter out to Graceland, to jazz concerts, to trying to share this one good thing in their lives that isn't a matter of survival and not have your heart break a bit.

#to say nothing of not being able to see Amos anf his damn saxophone #the kanes are all giant fucking music nerds and it makes me feel things as i project my own music fixations okay #the kane chronicles #carter kane #sadie kane #julius kane #elvis presley #tkc #rr crit a bit

[renaerys]

12 for Greens please!

12. “Give me your panties.”

Every time I write Greens I get softer for them.

Send me a prompt and some characters! Reminder that the challenge is to make everything SFW, so we're getting creative here.

List of prompts

xxx

It did not surprise Butch at all that Buttercup, the girl he had sworn to beat the crap out of as kids because a) he needed a hobby and b) she was the only person on the planet who could take a punch, had grown up to be the coolest girl he knew.

She was grounded, got caught coming home late from a party stinking of weed, and her father didn’t believe Bubbles’ cover story. But even still, she snuck out to go to the Blue Quake concert Butch had saved up all his tips for the last four months to get tickets to. Yeah, he could have given her ticket to Wes or Elmer or any of the others, but she’d punch him in the dick and pogo stick her way to the concert on his stiff corpse if he so much as dared, her words.

Butch, being seventeen and human, felt a brief rush at the idea that she’d come into any sort of contact with his dick, violent in nature or not, but he soon got over it because Blue Quake was happening and they were going together and they were going to have the greatest time ever.

Their tickets admitted them to the floor center stage, where the mosh pit soon undulated in full force, and Butch was living. The music was stupid good, the guitar riffs quickened his blood almost as hot as Chemical X, and next to him was the fucking cherry on top.

The cherry threw her arm around him and sang the chorus to this song directly in his ear. Her bangs were sweaty on his cheek, and he could barely hear her voice over his own heartbeat and the adrenaline, but she was warm and happy and that made him laugh. The mosh pit jostled them, but they were Super and invincible and together, and they were having the best fucking time.

xxx

Buttercup’s phone buzzed in her skirt pocket. It was probably Blossom wondering when she’d be back, and she couldn’t cover for her all night, and she really needed to wrap things up soon before the Professor got wise and figured out where Buttercup was.

Five more minutes. Five more minutes and then she’d be satisfied, but she’d said that five minutes ago, and she didn’t have the heart to tell Butch she had to go, so she didn’t. He could have given her ticket to one of the guys and not worried about curfew or angry dads, but he didn’t. And that surprised her. Butch had ditched her plenty of times before, threats notwithstanding, but not this time. She didn’t care to think about it too much, preferring to have fun in this moment with him.

“That’s our show!” the lead singer said. The crowd cheered, expecting the encore that would definitely come as fans threw flowers and shirts and themselves at the stage in shameless abandon.

“Wow!” Buttercup laughed. “They’re obviously doing an encore, what gives?”

“Hey, Buttercup.” Butch had to press his lips to her ear to be heard over the screaming. “Give me your panties.”

A punch to the dick was her gut instinct, but the lizard-brained part of her suspected he’d like that in his twisted way. He’d been good, solid even, and she was in the best mood.

Buttercup slid her panties off over her boots and shoved them at Butch. “You better make that count, asshole.”

He looked at her like he couldn’t believe she’d actually complied, because he probably couldn’t. He probably had never even held a girl’s underwear before, and that made Buttercup kind of proud. Aw, I’m his first. She leaned heavily into the pride so her anxiety wouldn’t consume her—what did he think of her now?

Butch barked a laugh like he’d forgotten how and clutched her panties in his fist. He averted his gaze. “You dirty bitch.”

“I can see your half chub,” she taunted right back.

Butch’s breath was hot on her forehead. “Bet you can.” He dropped his hand around her waist, and she thought about how she was bare now under her skirt and he knew that.

He raised her panties in his fist and fired off his blaster. The panties went up in green flames and landed on the stage with a flourish. The crowd howled and clapped, and Blue Quake started up their encore.

Buttercup made it home half an hour later to Bubbles playing mobile games without a care in the world and Blossom down in the kitchen entertaining their father.

“She covered for you,” Bubbles said, not looking up from her game.

“I owe her.”

“She watched The Price is Right with him.”

Buttercup winced. “I really owe her.”

“Yup.”

She showered and changed, and after apologizing to Blossom fifteen times and promising her a favor of her choice in the future, she settled into bed with her phone. There was a text from Butch.

[Butch: Confession: I kept your panties]

[Buttercup: I saw you incinerate them!]

[Butch: I didn’t. Got them right here]

He sent her a picture of her singed underwear splayed lovingly on his bedspread.

[Buttercup: You nasty fuck]

[Buttercup: Guess you’ll have a good night beating off]

Butch’s chat bubbles bounced for a long time, then disappeared. Buttercup bit her lip. It was a long time before he responded.

[Butch: Thanks for coming out. Was fun]

“Buttercup, turn off that light. I’m trying to sleep,” Blossom murmured.

Buttercup ignored her.

[Buttercup: Thanks for not giving away my ticket. It was cool of you]

His chat bubbles bounced and bounced. She imagined him typing in his bed, and she thought about his lips against her temple, warm and a little wet. She wondered what he was thinking now (probably fighting or fucking), if it was about her (it was always about her). Buttercup told herself these things, but she didn’t truly know. She’d never asked him. How do you even ask someone that? Do you think about me in bed at night? Fucking weird.

[Butch: Going to sleep. Talk tomorrow?]

Buttercup sat with that question mark for a long time. Hope? Indecision? Uncertainty? God, she felt like Blossom overanalyzing fucking punctuation marks in text messages. She thought about actually asking Blossom, but decided against it after everything Blossom had already done for her tonight. This was Butch, and she was overreacting. She decided to go with her gut, which had always worked with him before.

[Buttercup: Yeah. DOTA?]

His reply was immediate.

[Butch: Definitely]

[Buttercup: 🔫]

He liked her message, and she put her phone away. She may be grounded, but she’d hear his voice as she destroyed him in DOTA tomorrow. He’d bitch and moan about it, like he always did, but she didn’t mind so much.

And maybe…

Maybe she’d ask him.

Maybe.

xxx

If you enjoy my writing, check out more of my fics on AO3, link in my profile. I’m currently updating Trinity House and The Alchemy of Us. Thanks for reading!

#powerpuff girls #powerpuff girls fanfic #ppg greens #Butchercup #ppg butch #ppg buttercup #september fic prompts #having so much fun subverting the expectations of these prompts i gotta say

[matronoftheblackrose]

The King of Death

The souls swarmed around Thresh. The eternal Harrowing, the fall of Viego, all of this immense power. Truly, he could now truly and fully understand the meaningless nature of mortals and their struggles. After all, who could oppose him? His lantern shone with a brilliant, green light. Even the gravedigger could do naught but shamble away-

“Warden,” Yorick rumbled.

Thresh’s eyes snapped down and glared at Yorick. He dare stand here? In front of him?

“What are your thoughts, Gravedigger? Dare you think you can oppose me?”

Yorick shrugged. “What is your goal, Warden?”

“I know of your goals, Gravedigger. You cannot oppose me.”

“My goals?” Yorick stroked his beard, not making eye contact with Thresh. “Do you know them, Warden?”

Thresh cackled. He threw his lantern down on the ground in front of him, held his arms out to his sides and cast in the eerie glow of the Ruination itself, he demanded, “All you and the rest of Runeterra can only writhe, like a worm on a hook, before me. What need do I have to know of your goals?”

With a sudden, violent swing, Yorick struck Thresh’s perfect jawline with his shovel. Thresh had withstood the entire barrage of every single bloody Sentinel of Light with ease, he made no effort to resist a shovel.

Bone cracked.

Thresh’s head twisted from the impact. His eyes burned with rage as he slowly looked down at Yorick, who returned the intensity with a glare of his own.

“You get that one. Now to see what is still flesh, and what is bone, as I flay you.”

Yorick shook his head. “No. You do not,” turned around, and hobbled away from Thresh.

Thresh tried to pull his arm back to prepare his scythe, only to find his body unable to move. In fact, now that he thought about it, he was staring at his body from a wholly unique perspective. Thresh could not comprehend the literal, out of body experience, he was undergoing.

“There is a reason why Viego shed so much of the souls, and why it was so hard to ‘catch’ him. An ancient secret, even older than the Blessed Isles themselves,” Yorick said, the Maiden of the Mist encircling him, laughing and sobbing. “I may not be able to kill you yet, but when I can, I will. For now, I can cut down your misinformed ego.”

Thresh was about to howl his curses at Yorick when an iron gauntlet grasped his spirit’s throat. As Thresh was yanked back, Yorick gave Thresh one more disinterested look, but his words were colder than the deepest grave.

“Give Sahn-Uzal my regards.”

---

Thresh felt his soul fly through time and space, with all of his hundreds of thousands of souls scream in unison as they trailed behind him. Eventually, Thresh was thrown down onto an ephemeral ground that felt as solid as any stone. 

‘My liege, I bring to you an oddity,’ a voice whispered.

Thresh snapped his hands down, his scythe and lantern blasting into view, and he swung at the one who dared manhandle him. Strangely enough, the offender was similar to Hecarim and the Iron Legion- a foe built almost entirely from a humanoid suit of plate mail with a pale blue light that bloomed from within, but as Thresh’s scythe sank into a soul, the Warden knew this was just more food for his lantern. With a hard pull, Thresh ripped out the soul from the armor and guided it to his lantern, and absorbed it.

Dead silence as Thresh finally took in his surroundings: It was a new realm for him, sure, but it was... actually wonderful. All mimicries of life, all built entirely from the energy of mortal souls, from the paved ground of a castle and the tapestries depicting battles on the walls, that seemed to be simultaneously as close to Thresh as they were far from him, to the hundreds of armed, heavily armored soldiers surrounding him. That Yorick was a strange fellow, but the Warden could see he was in fact, being rewarded by the gravedigger. Thresh would make sure that Yorick’s torture would be delightful agony for such a beautiful gift.

‘He has power here?’ a soldier whispered.

‘No. He dares have power here,’ another whispered.

Thresh looked about, rattled his chain a little bit, and asked, “Which one of you brought me here?”

‘You know not?’

The soldiers laughed in unison at Thresh, making his sickly blood boil.

‘Foolish Banquet of Delights, only an emissary, or our liege, can do so,' another soldier answered.

“Liege?” Thresh spat the title out with a cackle. “There is a king here? How curious. What is a king to a god? Bring him here, I will claim this realm for my own.”

The soldiers went dead quiet. They pulled their spears, bows and their entire armoury of weaponry free and pointed at Thresh.

Thresh struck first. Swinging his scythe, he cut swathe after swathe of soldiers down with ease. Each spirit detonating as he pulled himself into them, absorbing hundreds of souls. Even here, Thresh could feel his strength grow, the power of the lantern absorbing souls with every strike he made.

“Kneel before your God, you wretched mongrels. I will give you the leash that you all deserve.”

A single toll of a big black bell roared in the distance. The soldiers pulled back, sheathed their weapons, and knelt to the ground. Thresh could not help but grin- he already conquered an entire realm in such a short time.

A voice sang, “When the bell begins to ring, it means the time has cometh for one to go to the temple of the king.”

A wild haired man walked towards Thresh, pointing at him, mania in his eyes as he continued, “There! In the middle of the circle of our legions he stands! There he stands- searching! Seeking!”

Thresh swung his chain once, twice, then heaven the scythe at the man. 

And with just one touch of the man’s trembling hand, Thresh’s scythe stopped midair, and fell to the ground.

“The answer will be found,” the man continued as he brought his hands up to the sky of silently screaming souls. “Heavens, help us. Spare us the daylight of life this man brings.”

And like the rush of a thousand, metal wings grinding and screeching, a mace the size of a colonnade slammed into the ground. Along with the mace, with a flick of iron wings that sent a cascade of shrapnel flying every which way, a giant of a man appeared from the soul-filled air.

“Nightfall has arrived,” the man concluded, bowing to the ground in supplication.

A head or two taller than the gigantic mace, swathed from head to toe in the heaviest armor, with the framework of a ribcage composing of his chest plate, an iron revenant stood before Thresh.The iron man stared at Thresh, who may have been dwarfed in stature, but the Warden certainly puffed his chest out like a boy trying to impress his date, in response to the giant’s arrival.

Thresh pointed at the man before him, “Are you the so called king of this realm?”

The iron revenant did not respond.

Thresh tightened his grip on his scythe. “Are you or are you just another pitiful soul for my collection?”

The iron revenant looked to its side, at the prostrated man, and said in a deep voice, that sounded eerily similar to the toll of a bell, “Dio, I request a song: Hymn of Valor.”

Dio stood up, bowed again, scuttled to the back and in seconds, a song that quickened the heart and pumped one’s adrenaline flooded the realm.

Thresh pointed at the iron revenant and said, “Come out and play, liege.”

“I will ask this once: Who marked you to be brought here?” the revenant asked in response.

“It does n-?’ was all Thresh could manage before a spectral claw the size of the revenant grasped him, pulled him forward with loud, shrieking steel on steel, and threw him to the ground.

Before Thresh could respond, he felt the full weight of the mace slam into him. He felt his body creak, his soul crack, and it would have been a fatal blow if it were not for all-

“One million, three hundred fifty seven thousand, six hundred and sixty seven souls empower you.”

Thresh’s eyes went wide. He threw his scythe out, hooking the revenant’s armor, and tore his chain with all of his might. There was the clink of metal breaking, which elicited a gasp of shock from onlookers. Thresh was about to say something when he felt his body leave the ground, and he saw he was about to be golf swung in the face by the mace.

Thresh threw his lantern and pulled himself towards it, his face narrowly missing the swing- but his legs felt the full impact and shattered instantly.

“One million, three hundred fifty seven thousand, six hundred and sixty six now empower you,” the iron revenant continued.

“How dare you do this to me- I am your god! You will kneel before me and I will add your soul to my collection!” Thresh spat out as his legs reformed and he stood back up.

The iron revenant went quiet. It hoisted its mace up to its shoulder, and pointed at Thresh. “You may be a collection of souls, but not a single one of them is perfected, Thresh of Helia.”

Thresh felt something in his head- it must be the newly formed flesh. An ancient, long forgotten sensation that the Ruination discarded alongside the lizard brain mortals had.

“Though misery loves company, you have what is mine. I will take them back.”

The iron revenant swung his mace down again, almost clumsily so. Thresh was able to sidestep the strike, only to find the giant mace change trajectory mid-air, and aimed directly at his lantern.

With a loud crack, the lantern burst with a flood of souls that all flew to the iron revenant and prostrated themselves to it.

“Hobbyist of Helia, of the Blessed Isles- what is a false god to the true King of Death?” The iron revenant raised his mace above his head, and with a bellowing bell toll, demanded, "Who am I, my children of the grave? Who is your liege, sing my praises, conquered souls.”

And the voices chanted,’Mordekaiser! Mordekaiser!’

Thresh felt a bead of sweat drip down the side of his head. What in all of the hells was this? Wait, he remembered something- Yorick said something about Sahn someone? Duke Vladimir of Camavor related an old legend about a warlord-

Then Thresh was struck yet again. This time Thresh braced himself as best as he could, but his lantern could not sustain the force.

“One million, two hundred fifty five thousand, five hundred and thirty two left,” Mordekaiser stated as more souls fled from Thresh’s collection and swirled about him in a cacophony of metal shards. “I will accept your servitude whenever you decide, godling.”

Thresh decided he did not care who this thing was- no one steals from his collection. Whipping his chain about, Thresh let out a torrent of vicious strikes- each blow detonating a soul that could tear entire buildings down. Yet after the tenth blow, Mordekaiser grasped the chain, and snapped the scythe, which joined his encircling aura of metal and death.

“Your sickness sustains me. Your pain delights me. Your lifeline is severed, death is creeping, and there is none to save you.”

“For there is none as great as he, the Kaiser of Morde!” the soldiers all cried out in unison.

Thresh staggered back. He could get out, his lantern beamed with the energy of souls when he was struck in the chest- collapsing it a thousand times over as more souls fled from his collection, repairing his broken and battered body.

“One million, seventy nine thousand, eight hundred and seventy nine left. You shall serve me too, spirit.”

Thresh hissed, “What are you? How can you have this much power? Not even Viego-”

“I am the metal that Noxia was built on. I am the monster that is whispered in the ears of children. I am the reason that man fears the dark of the forests and the light of fire. The songs of sirens are sung to my appeasement, and I bless alll with great suffering. I am Mordekaiser, and the same magic that chains you to this realm frees me to walk between.”

Thresh looked about, realizing the full error of his ways. This really was the realm of death, and this man- no, this creature, was not only able to exist here, but it cultivated the power of death itself. The Shadow Isles may be undeath, but that was why Mordekaiser was able to harm him at all. He needed to escape, he needed a moment-

Thresh narrowly avoided the next mace strike as he backed away from the advancing Mordekaiser, his mind racing. So long as Mordekaiser was focused on him, Thresh could not really concoct anything remotely clever. Wait.

“Yorick the Gravekeeper has asked me to send his regards to Sahn-Uzal,” Thresh threw out, hoping it would land.

And it did. Mordekaiser paused in his stride. “Yorick, you say. So that is how you were marked. I see.”

That was enough breathing space. Thresh detonated his lantern once more, cursing at how many souls were about to be lost, as the spirits ripped open a portal to the living world. With enough energy utilized, so long as the souls themselves were fully consumed, Thresh could walk between these realms at the mere cost of a couple hundred thousand or so souls in theory.

Mordekaiser’s gauntlet snapped out, almost grasping Thresh, but his fingers caught nothing but air as Thresh disappeared from view. Whatever this Mordekaiser was, he needed more information. He needed to interrogate Vladimir, he needed to collect more souls, he needed more power. How dare someone lay claim to his realm, when Thresh was the Warden- nay, the God of Souls.

“Mordekaiser, my liege...” Dio started, but said nothing else. He would not dare question the King of Death.

“The Gravekeeper, one of the only men to earn respect, has marked him as a target of interest. When I return, the hobbyist shall collect more souls.”

“And the more souls one dare has, the more power you have against them, Kaiser of Morde, a 6v4 you could say,” Dio said with a nod and a smile.

Mordekaiser glared at Dio, silencing the man. What a strange statement to make when everyone here knew about it. But that was the problem, only people here knew about his might. Mordekaiser was now in deep thought- perhaps it was time to return to Runeterra and take back what was rightfully his.

#Thresh #Yorick #Mordekaiser #League of Legends #They did Yorick dirty #So I did this and I wrote about Morde #cause fuck stupid sexy Thresh

[prurientpuddlejumper]

Out Tonight (Part 4)

<- Part 3 | Part 5 ->

Summary:  The morning after your drunken hookup with Rafael Barba, continued. More awkwardness and unpacking the dubcon.

3,294 words

You had been nervous waking up next to a stranger. You knew you’d both been drunk, and caught up in a karaoke dream. Now that the night’s carefree energy had worn off, and the glamorous glow of stage lights were replaced by the garish light of day, you were worried things would be awkward.

Of course, you had pictured something more along the lines of, he would think you were ugly, or you would freeze up and blurt something stupid, or he’d slip his wedding ring out of his pocket, put it back on his finger, and smack you on the ass as he swaggered out, and you’d feel like an idiot.

You had not expected the shitstorm of him not remembering anything.

He was drunk, but with the way he was spouting off legal advice, you would never have imagined he was blackout drunk. You never imagined waking up to being accused of drugging him. God—this was what you got for letting loose for once. It always seemed so glamorous when your college roommates brought guys home after a night of partying, but of course the one time you do, you’re a sexual predator. Fuck!

Then again, it was starting to make sense. Because immediately after accusing you, he practically tried to arrest himself. The open, flirtatious charmer you met at the bar was so unlike this tightly-wound ball of anxiety, he must have been down to his last brain cell last night. It was just that each and every one of his brain cells happened to contain the entire New York bar exam.

But that didn’t make you a predator, did it? He was fine. Maybe not fine, but not… It wasn’t like he was unconscious. Oh, god, was that really how low you wanted to set the bar? It’s fine to take advantage of drunk people so long as they haven’t passed out yet? Or so long as they’re men? Your stomach turned. Everything he said about filing charges against him… suddenly you were certain you were the one who should be standing in front of a grand jury.

***

Barba waved the compact hotel-provided blow dryer over his freshly washed and rung out boxers. His pants and shirt would need to be ironed before he would dare leave the hotel room (it was bad enough that he had none of his usual hair product and was already dreadfully fuzzy), but the large ironing board wouldn’t fit inside the small hotel bathroom. He would have to go back out there, but he didn’t have a change of pants. He wondered if would be appropriate to walk around in just his boxers. You had already seen him naked, he supposed. Maybe. He didn’t really know what happened between you, but it seemed a bit late to be feeling shy.

Then again, he still could not be certain he wasn’t the one who pushed himself on you. As he got into the shower, he had smelled you on his fingers, and the scent was so intoxicating he had to stop himself from licking them. A little clip of memory returned, your lips warm and inviting against his, the taste of your tongue, his hips rolling desperately against yours, and he realized what that feeling was that he could not quite place. It was attachment: a deep, carnal, passionate, bond. Probably the product of oxytocin or… pheromones? Some lizard-brain part of him had developed an irresistible need for you.

It wouldn’t be unusual for a victim in your situation to act friendly toward her abuser, if you hadn’t fully processed yet. If he had taken advantage of a drunk woman at a bar, he certainly had no desire to traumatize you further by strutting around half naked.

He put on his toasty boxers and mostly-clean undershirt, and knocked at the bathroom door, poking his head out into the room, eyes averted. “Sorry to ask, but do you have a pair of sweatpants that might fit me?”

There was a flash of movement, and a loud sniff as you jolted up into a sitting position. He looked up, and noticed you hadn’t moved from the spot on the bed where he had left you, and you were facing away from him, rubbing your eyes.

“I… I might have something,” you said, trying to hide the waver in your voice.

Without thinking he rushed out, closing the distance in three steps, then stood awkwardly by the side of the bed, suddenly aware that he had no idea what to do. “Are… are you OK?” he asked. A knot tightened in his stomach. It was him, wasn’t it? You must have remembered something he did.

Your big eyes looked up at him, red and glistening with tears. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” you whimpered.

Oh. He dropped onto the bed beside you, staring at his lap.

“I didn’t think you were… You wanted it so much! You didn't seem…. But you were. God, you were crying! You hugged me at the bar and cried into my shirt, I should have known you were in a vulnerable place. I took advantage of you. I’m sorry. I don’t know what to—what do I do to make this right? Are you going to press charges? I’ll do what you said you would, I’ll plead guilty.”

His lizard-brain had the strong impulse to pull you into his arms and tell you it was all alright. His lawyer voice answered automatically, “There’s no case. You committed no crime in New York State if I consented at the time, so long as I was not drugged against my will. Which you… didn’t?” he hazarded a guess. “Even if there was a sexually based offense here—a male victim and female defendant? No jury would ever convict you. The D.A. wouldn’t touch it without ironclad proof of wrongdoing.”

“Th-that’s not the issue! And that’s terrible!”

“It’s… the system,” he gave a commiserating shrug. “Justice has never been blind.”

“But if I hurt you…” You fell silent, and were quiet for awhile, not sure what to say, or do. His words were not exactly comforting, but they weren’t condemning either. You were more confused than ever.

“If you want to make it up to me, start by lending me some pants?” he asked with a smirk that was somewhere between rakish and about-to-die-of-embarrassment, dragging a corner of the blanket over his lap.

***

A tiny cloud of steam puffed from the clothing iron as Barba methodically pressed the appropriate creases back into his dress pants while smoothing the unwanted wrinkles out. His ejaculate had not left a permanent stain, and, vain as it was to admit, that had him feeling significantly relieved about the entire situation. That, and vomiting his guts out, taking an aspirin, and downing several cups of bad coffee from the coffee maker.

“Alright,” he said, taking his eyes off the iron just long enough to give you a probing look where you sat, cross-legged on the bed, “Walk me through everything that happened last night. Step by step.”

His gaze, though brief, was intense, like you were a witness for the defense and he was ready to poke holes in anything less than the full and complete truth. Yet it was harder to be intimidated now that he was wearing your pink and blue plaid Vermont Flannel pajamas, looking very domestic in front of an ironing board. And since you had noticed his pink heart socks that matched the color of his tie.

“What’s the last thing you do remember?”

The flash of memory of your warm lips sprang, unwanted, into the forefront of his mind. He pushed it away, and dug further back. “The McCaskey trial ended. Everyone took the verdict hard.” His lip twitched but he restrained himself from saying aloud that it was all his fault. Nobody needed a pity-party. “Everyone else had their own Friday plans, so I went out to drink alone. Don’t give me that look, I drink alone all the time.”

The look you were giving intensified.

“OK, I see how that sounded worse. I drink moderately. I have never done anything like...” He lifted the iron and used it to gesture to the entire waking-up-drunk-in-a-strange-hotel-room situation. His brow knit as he tried to peer deeper into his memory, but everything grew dream-like from there. “I need to know how this happened.”

“Do you remember singing?” you prompted.

“I sang?”

“We did half the soundtrack of RENT.”

“Dear lord…” In his stunned embarrassment, he stopped moving the iron and nearly burned his pants, jerking the iron up at the last second.

“You have a beautiful voice,” you smirked, suddenly quite enjoying his bewilderment.

“Oh god,” he moaned woefully.

He folded his pants and set them aside on the chair with his jacket, which also needed a bit of care, but would suffice enough for the walk of shame back home. He spread his rumpled dress shirt on the ironing board.

The thin fabric of his undershirt stretched over his chest, so that every movement showed off the working of robust muscles. Its low cut neck revealed a swath of dark chest hair. The overall effect made you fight with your inner voice not to run your hands all over him.

“Anything coming back?” you asked hopefully, but he only glanced up and shrugged. They say music has a profound connection to memory, so you risked singing a few bars. “What’s the time? Well it’s gotta be close to midnight...”

At first he just gave a wry little chuckle, focusing on ironing his shirt. Then his head snapped up, eyes focused far beyond the wall of the hotel room.

“They set up karaoke in my bar?” He set the hot iron aside as his mind worked over this bizarre realization as you nodded your head, confirming it was not some weird dream he had. He covered his shameful face with a large hand, pinching the tension building in the bridge of his nose. His eyes darted down at you between his fingers. “We sang together,” he breathed. He raked his hand slowly down the length of his face. As his palm brushed over his lips, the sensation of yours came back to him again: a supple, giving pressure, your tongue wet and eager and sweet like strawberry. A racing, fluttering in his heart made his breathing hitch. He felt sweaty.

He was just breathing now, staring down at you with such intensity in those leaf-green eyes, the urge to run your hands down his chest returned. But it was more than that. For the first time since you woke up, his eyes were looking at you with something like recognition. You almost glimpsed the friend you’d made, the one whose absence you’d been feeling like a hole in the gut. Then he shook his head, and it was gone.

“Tell me what happened next,” the prosecutor said.

***

The Rafael Barba of this morning was much more like what you’d expect a big-shot city lawyer to be. Now that you had seen him sober it was obvious how drunk he was already before he got up to sing. Everything you told him turned his face and his neck a new shade of red.

By the time you finished the story, he had finished ironing and changed back in to everything but his jacket and tie. He sat down next to you on the bed, his weight sinking into the mattress so you had to resist gravity not to lean into him.

“So we didn’t have sex?”

“No. I could tell you were too drunk to consent. You just fingered me. I probably shouldn’t have let you get in my pants at all, but I… I guess I really wanted to.” You blushed and your head fell, trapped between wanting to savor the delicious memory and ashamed of your conduct.

He groaned, pressing his lips thin into a tense but smug smirk. “Legally? Everything about that statement is wrong. New York law states that someone who becomes drunk voluntarily is not deemed mentally incapacitated to give consent.”

“I know. You’ve said that twice already. What’s legal isn’t always the same as what’s right.”

His bright eyes sparkled when you said that. “Agreed. But irrelevant,” he brushed off your interruption. “For the purposes of determining criminal sexual assault, New York law also does not distinguish between penetration by penis, finger, or foreign objects. In other words—if, hypothetically, New York changed its laws regarding intoxication and consent—I would be guilty of raping you.” He said it in his callous, matter-of-fact voice, then after thinking about the weight behind his conclusion, looked as if his head might explode. His eyes fell across the marks still visible above your collar. “The way you tell it...” he began hesitantly, low and shamed, “It sounds like I’m the one who got drunk and pushed myself on you.”

“No!” you cried immediately, with a force that startled you both, and aggravated your headaches. "You didn’t push. If I said no, you would have stopped… I checked,” you added with a small laugh.

He exhaled in relief. “Really?” he raised a soft brow with a bit more blond in it than his hair.

“Yep. You’re quite the gentleman, even blackout drunk. That’s why I didn’t think you were…” You trailed off.

“Well. It’s good to know there are lines I won’t cross.”

Your hands were folded tightly in your lap. He was hunched over with his chin buried deep in his fist. You opened your mouth to speak, but he spoke first, and you apologized at the same time for talking over each other.

“You first,” he said.

“I just… I’m sorry, Rafael. Mr. Barba? I don’t…” you sighed, and gave him a weary smile. “Last night was a lot of fun. We had fun together. I liked getting to know you. I’m sorry it turned into such a shit show. I should have just gotten your number and said goodnight.”

“I don’t know which one of us to blame,” he said with finality. You looked so helpless and small, the fierce urge to protect you welled in his chest. He hated to think of you carrying guilt over his own stupid mistakes. “I don’t blame you.” He reached an arm behind you to pat your back, but his hand froze, shaking, without making contact. He didn’t know how you’d feel about him touching you.

You leaned into the open space his arm created, turning your head into his shoulder in a side-hug. The primal impulse fighting him for control screamed in victory, taking in the smell of your hair and relishing it. His hand patted your upper back stiffly, three times, like a good soldier obeying conscious, sober, higher-brain Barba. You pulled back and stammered an apology, cheeks darkening.

“Well. Then.” He stood suddenly, swallowing. He bustled about the room collecting his things, touching up his hair, getting ready to leave.

***

You leaned against the wall by the door, waiting to say goodbye, debating and mentally practicing the words you wanted to say. Finally, he stood in the narrow entryway, and you had your chance.

“Hey. Maybe this is too forward, but… do you want to hang out again?” you asked, eyes having trouble deciding whether they wanted to gaze deep into his or avoid him entirely and stare at the ground.

“What could be forward about a date after this?” he shot you a look from under his eyebrows. “The fact that I would remember it?”

Ground. Your eyes made up their mind; you stared doggedly at the ground hoping it might open up and drop you eleven stories to merciful death on the lobby floor.

“It’s nothing personal,” he began buttoning up his jacket, “it’s just… this was a mistake. I do not have time to be frolicking about like a sophomore at a liberal arts school. I let myself get out of control. Whoever you met last night is not who I am.” He tugged the jacket to straighten it for emphasis, though all the while his heart was fighting against the bounds of his rib cage. You looked so downtrodden. Apparently you had a wonderful, magical time singing musical theater karaoke with his drunk alter-ego, and in less than an hour sober he had already made you cry once, and seemed poised to do it again. “You don’t know me,” he sighed. “I know you even less. I doubt you would like me very much.”

“But maybe I would,” you said, finally returning his gaze with fragile determination. “I’d like to at least get to know you sober. To see if this… meant anything. I don’t want to believe this was all a mistake, that everything I felt—that I thought you felt, too—was a lie. I don’t know if you’ll like me, either, but how do you ever get to know anyone if you don't give getting to know them a chance?”

His jaw tightened with the obvious answer that he didn’t. Barba had work, and he had his lonely Scotch at his usual bar (which it now looked like he might have to replace if it was turning into a karaoke dive).

“Aren’t you lonely, Mr. Barba?” you asked, as if reading his mind.

“No,” he said tersely, but then softened his answer, “My work keeps me too busy for relationships. I don’t have the time.”

“Is there no room in your schedule for one date? I’m not asking for a relationship, just… a half hour to do something fun. I feel awful about how bad this was for you. I just want to leave you with something to remember me by… that you’ll actually remember.”

He did have more fun with you than he’d had in years. Even from the handful of scrambled memories that came back to him, he could tell that much—how good it felt to let go and belt out songs he only ever sang in the shower, to have a partner singing back to him, completely in sync with each other. He remembered babbling on about laws, and you patiently listening like it was actually interesting and not obnoxious. As you fidgeted nervously awaiting his answer, you added a coy, “¿Por favor?” and his mind filled in por favor, papi. It brought with it another snippet of memory. A song you were singing, together, your beautiful eyes looking right into his, pleading. “The heart may freeze, or it can burn.”

He grumbled and shifted feet. “I have a lot of prep for my next case, but I should be finished with it by nine,” he said. His tone was so flat and sharp it took you a long moment to realize what he meant. “If you want to… have dinner.”

You beamed ear to ear, pushing off from the wall to bounce on your toes so vibrantly you made yourself nauseous and had to stand still. Then your face fell. “Ah—you mean tonight? I can’t tonight, I’m going to Hamilton with my parents. How about tomorrow? I’m getting dim sum with a friend at Radiance. She’s bringing her girlfriend so I’ll be a total third wheel if I don’t have a date.”

“You want to bring the stranger from your drunken hookup to lunch date with an old friend?” he grimaced. “Won’t that be, I don’t know, awkward?”

“Oh, incredibly. But we can lean into that, for fun, and science!” you grinned dangerously.

“How about breakfast,” he offered. “Coffee?”

“Coffee would be great.”

• ● • ━━━━━─ ••●•• ─━━━━━ • ● •

Tags: @beccabarba  @caked-crusader @itsjustmyfantasyroom@thatesqcrush @dianilaws @permanentlydizzy@eclecticreader2020  @mrsrafaelbarba @da-po 

#Rafael Barba #Rafael Barba x Reader #Raúl Esparza #Barba x female reader #My writing

[damienthepious]

if you would be so kind as to do a fic commentary for a sound that runs in the deep I will be eternally grateful, I am dying to hear your Thoughts

TuT💕 I'll do at least a little tonight, up until the fic narrows focus, and if i have time after work tomorrow i'll unpack a little more 💕💕💕

I'll start right at the beginning.

[Amaryllis sings with a frequency that Lord Arum finds immeasurably comforting. While she works, while she sketches in her journals, in leisure, even humming while she rests gently in bed, fading towards sleep-]

I think i mentioned this in another commentary, but one of the very few things i actually took from s3 was a note in the lotft script (unless that was from bawe??? genuinely can’t remember, haven’t looked at either of those scripts in a while but i know it’s not in MH because i’ve read that TOO many times) that said (paraphrasing) that music is where Arum and Rilla's worldviews overlap. That's... so fucking beautiful to me.

And the idea of Rilla just... singing, casually, because it's something that she just likes to do, just for fun- I feel like that's probably not a terribly familiar motivation, for Arum. Just doing things for fun. Lord "I have no hobbies little knight only craft" Arum, just having fun? I honestly doubt it.

[Of course, she does not sing with the same layered depth of meaning that his Keep does, no. Of course not, she lacks the vocabulary (so to speak) and the inherent, inborn magic, though that does not make her songs any less beautiful. She sings with his Keep as well, at times, when they find more songs in common between them.]

Because the Keep is the main context Arum has, for music. He's used to it being a language, and a magic. Again, Rilla just having FUN with it is foreign and novel to him. And gods, i love the idea that Meet Me By The River isn't the only song that is shared between human and monster cultures. It can't be, right?

[(another voice in harmony with his Keep; it strikes something deep within Arum's chest, heat like coals glowing warm, the same feeling that struck him the first time Amaryllis gasped with wonder at the sight of their greenhouse, the same feeling that struck him when her eyes sparkled gazing out his workshop window into the majesty of the swamp below, the same feeling that struck him at the reverent awe in Sir Damien's expression upon his own introduction to Arum's home)]

The Keep is Arum's main context for music. Before Moonlit Hermit, I expect that the only voice Arum had ever heard in harmony with his Keep's two-tone was his own.

[(the idea of these little humans, these creatures whose affection he covets, cultivating warmth and fondness not only for Arum himself, but Arum's creator, his charge, his counterpart, his Keep-)]

Nothing to make love grow like watching your new paramours fall in love with your home and your family. Arum is fiercely protective of his home and every creature in it; Rilla and Damien growing attached too would be... kind of stunning. He's been caring for his Keep alone for saints know how many years, after all.

[(there is very little more beautiful to Lord Arum, than a fond harmony)]

a fond harmony has been an unequivocal indication of love for Arum's entire life, after all. Expanding that harmony, adding complexity and depth to his small-but-growing support network, his family, it feels beautiful. it is

[He tries not to let on, of course, regarding his greed for Amaryllis' voice (both of their voices, of course, but in this specific context-). Some nebulous part of him worries- if she knows, perhaps she might stop. Or, worse. She might continue, but only out of some indulgent pity, and not of her own desire.]

oops, i gave Arum a chunk of my dipshit depression brain. Arum, sweetheart, if she sang for you because she knows you like it, that means she cares about doing things that you like. That's still her wanting to do it. Also, obviously, she's not going to STOP because she knows you like it!!! Dense lizard!

[Foolishness, of course.] Arum... 💜 learningggggg [In more ways than one. Amaryllis will only ever do what she wants to do, stubborn thing. He has known that since the first day he knew her. Additionally-]

The lizard catastrophizes, still, but he's learning to recognize when those thoughts are nonsensical or unfair. And he trusts Rilla. He does. Those particular thoughts? They aren't even remotely reasonable.

[Foolishness, to think he could possibly hide his feelings from the pair of them.] The lizard lies like it's his job because he'd be too embarrassed to breathe otherwise, but, he's also so used to being alone that he's not good at hiding his feelings.

[Amaryllis possesses the sharpened focus of a scalpel,] i can't fucking lie i kind of adore this bit, i'm kinda actually proud of that one,

[and Sir Damien (when calm) can interpret his moods with an ease that almost frightens him.] Damien is an emotional person, and he's highly perceptive (beneath the terminus he heard Rilla speak like TWO SENTENCES to/about Arum and he could tell that there was an emotional connection between them, even if he was too exhausted to interpret that in any healthy way), AND he's also anxious about making sure that the people around him are happy (neurodivergent fist-bump, damien-my-dude) so I imagine when he's steady, he's extremely good at keeping tabs on how his friends/partners are feeling

[She sings for him more and more, as they grow more comfortable together, as they settle into affection and understanding.] because she cares about him, and doing something that makes him happy makes her happy too.

aaaaand now it is late, and i must dive bomb into bed so i won't be miserable tomorrow. I hope this is fun/illuminating/neat in some way!! Thank you aaaaa 😘💕💖

#<3<3<3<3<3 #elle's fanfic meta

[nataliedanovelist]

GF - All Star

Summary: A deep, dark secret about Ford is slowly revealed to his family, and he’s not ready.

For Skaleigh, wherever she may be...

~~~~~~~~~~

A few days after Weirdmegeddon, Ford was exiting the basement, taking a break from cleaning it out today. Stan had been recovering from his memory loss beautifully and so Ford decided to get a certain chore done on this rainy day. He could hear something, however, that made him freeze as a shiver ran down his spine and his race turned as red as his sweater.

“... start coming and they don't stop coming,

Fed to the rules and I hit the ground running.

Didn't make sense not to live for fun.

Your brain gets smart but your head gets dumb.”

Recognizing who’s voice that was, Ford began to relax. The sweet smell of vanilla and sugar graced his schnoz and he followed the music to the kitchen. There, Mabel was in her little pink apron over her sprinkle-sweater, dancing around the kitchen as she mixed icing with food coloring in little bowls. The radio was playing on the kitchen table, a little dirty with flour, and the whole kitchen was a mess, but Ford couldn't help but smile at his beautiful niece as her hair flew everywhere as she danced and sang her heart out. When the chorus came, she banged her head and put the bowl of light-blue icing on the counter to dance more freely.

“Hey now, you're an all-star, get your game on, go play!

Hey now, you're a rock star, get the show on, get paid!

And all that glitters is gold!

Only shooting stars break the mold.”

At the words “shooting stars”, Mabel attempted a flip and fell on her face, just like she did at the dance party at the beginning of summer. Ford winced and made a move towards her, slightly emerging from his hiding spot at the doorway, but stopped when Mabel sprung up, unhurt, and declared to herself and the kitchen, “I’m okay!” Her eyes landed on her uncle and she grinned. “Grunkle Ford! Whatcha doin’?”

“I thought I would take a break from cleaning.” Ford explained casually with a shrug while Mabel turned down the radio a little so they could talk better. “Having fun?”

“Yeah!” Mabel pointed to the twelve cupcakes that were cooling on the stove and said, “I’m making everyone a snack. Want one?”

“I would love one, my dear. Thank you.”

“Ah, ah.” Mabel wiggled a finger at him. “You have to do something for it, first.”

Ford raised an eyebrow at her and held his cleft chin. “Oh?”

Mabel opened the drawer she knew Ford kept his apron in and pulled out his old My Other Oven is a Bunsen apron. “You have to decorate the cupcakes with me.”

Ford grinned and happily accepted the protective clothing against stains. “Well, I suppose it’s only fair that I help you if I’m going to have one. Do we have to share with Stanley and Dipper?”

“Nope!” Mabel giggled. “We can eat them all ourselves! Six each!”

Ford laughed alongside her and she gave him a small bowl of white icing to color however he wanted. He carefully added a few drops of green, seeing how Mabel had already made blue and red and was working on yellow, and she began to dance a little again and she jumped into song.

“Somebody once asked could I spare some change for gas?

I need to get myself away from this place.

I said ‘Yep what a concept,

I could use a little fuel myself,

And we could all use a little change.’”

Ford chuckled, mixing the icing, and he couldn’t help himself; he made himself jump in.

“Well, the years start coming and they don't stop coming,

Fed to the rules and I hit the ground running.

Didn't make sense not to live for fun.

Your brain gets smart but your head gets dumb.”

Mabel gasped in shock for a number of reasons. A) She had never heard Grunkle Ford sing before. 2) She didn’t think he would know this song, let alone the words. And D) His voice was actually very pretty. Mabel grinned and they happily sang together until the song changed to a commercial for Cam’s Camshafts and they began to decorate the cupcakes.

~~~~~~~~~~

Stan yawned as he stretched his tired limbs. He had been sitting out on the deck of the Stan O’ War II, watching the sun set, and he was now in a sleepy trance. Time to put on some warm, fuzzy pajamas and turn on the little TV in the kitchen.

Stan went into his shared bedroom and stopped when he accidentally walked in on Ford in a towel, his back to the entrance and unaware of the intruder as he dug through his drawer for new clothes. Stan was careful to be quiet and give his jumpy brother some space, planning on leaving him alone, but something caught his eye.

During the Stanswitch, Ford insisted on Stan turning away, uncomfortable with what his twin might see. Despite Stan’s insistence that it wasn’t anything he hadn’t seen before, Ford practically begged him not to look, so Stan went along with it until he had shed his suit, leaving only his dark pants and undershirt, and he turned to switch clothes, but he found Ford bent over, his back littered with dozens of ugly cars, trophies for surviving out in the Multiverse for thirty years. Stan had thought that this was the reason for Ford’s modesty and thick sweaters (and okay, sure, the guy had always been a little chilly), but maybe there was another reason.

Stan grinned. No. Way. He slipped away, deciding he would enjoy making fun of Ford when he would least expect it, and he immediately left for the kitchen silently and quickly texted Dipper and Mabel.

A few weeks past since Stan knew Ford’s secret and he had pocketed it away as his “secret weapon”; of course, Dipper and Mabel knew and Stan wished he could have seen the looks on their faces or heard them laugh, but oh well. The kids swore to keep it between the two of them, but Stan wouldn’t be surprised if all of Gravity Falls kenw at this point. Something to look forward to this summer.

Stan had half-forgotten about Ford’s secret until they were at a small shop in Liverpool, England and something jogged the old conman’s memory. A CD was sitting in a 50% off bucket and Stan could have sworn a beam of light from Heaven was shining on the little box. Stan snatched it and hid it in his jacket for later.

The next day Stan couldn’t wait any longer. They were gently coasting on the Irish Sea, the spring weather being warm and calm and pleasant. Ford was out on the deck, reading a map, and Stan sat their radio down, the disc already in place. “Hey Sixer,” It took everything in Stan to hide his snicker. “Mind if I play some music?”

Ford hardly looked up from the map. “Huh? Oh sure, Stanley. Go ahead.”

With the biggest grin Stan had probably ever made in his life, he pressed play.

SomeBODY once told me the world is gonna roll me,

I ain't the sharpest tool in the shed.

Ford’s polydactyl hands clenched the map so tightly it nearly destroyed the papered material. He lowered it as his face blushed so furiously it matched his maroon sweater perfectly. Sweat was dripping from his forehead profoundly, his eyebrows were nearly hidden in his fluffy hair, they were so high, and his eyes were as wide as dinner plates.

Stan snorted, trying to contain his laughter just a little bit longer. “You like this song, don't you? Oh man, here comes my FAVORITE part!” And to make sure he could embarrass his brother as much as he could, Stan sang along.

“Hey now, you're an all-star, get your game on, go play!

Hey now, you're a rock star, get the show on, get paid!

And all that glitters is gold! (I like gold.)

Only shooting stars break the mold.”

And then Stan couldn’t hold it any longer. He busted into a huge fit of laughter, holding his ribs and wheezing as Ford sheepishly lowered his head into the map and hid in shame. When the song was over and Stan was slowing down in his laughing, Ford snapped and spun around, crumpling the map down and scowling.

“How did you find out?!” He demanded, still incredibly red in the face, even his ears were pink.

“I’m your twin, Genius,” Stan huffed, whipping his eyes dry of tears. “I’m bound to notice a couple of things when stuck on a boat with you. I gotta ask, though, why in Moses’ name…”

“It wasn’t intentional, I can assure you of that.” Ford said to try to preserve his dignity. “I had fought a battle alongside a tribe of octopus-armed warrior piglets since they shared their food and water with me. They were quite friendly, unlike the gang of penguin-finned lizards we encountered. It is customary for their tribe to have a grand party after a battle is won in which they all get tattoos. I had misjudged how… erm, intoxicated their drinks would make me, and when it was my turn to get a tattoo of my choosing, I had a certain song stuck in my head and sung it out loud, so the artist delivered my drunken request."

Stan burst into another fit of laughter, one that oddly sounded friendlier than the last one. Like, Ford was supposed to laugh with him. Ford, despite still being very red and embarrassed, couldn’t help but smile. “Oh, man! That’s gotta be your best story from out in the Multiverse yet!”

Ford saw that as a challenge and sat in one of the chairs to get comfortable. “I can think of at least five better stories.”

Stan quickly sat in the other chair like an excited child for a new movie and Ford dove into telling of some of the more fun-filled adventures he had experienced.

~~~~~~~~~~

Summer of 2014 was upon them and the Pines couldn’t be happier. The kids were joyous to be where they felt at home, and even though the old sailors were living the dream, it would be nice to take a three-month break and see their favorite pair of twins.

About two weeks after an emotional reunion, the kids were gently reminded of something they had on their Summer bucket-list.

Much like Stan, they planned their little attack carefully so they may truly enjoy their uncle’s misery. The gift shop was open, but slow. Wendy was behind the counter, Soos was reading a comic book and sitting on a closed barrel, and Dipper and Mabel were grinning like crazy on the porch, the screen door wide open. Mabel popped the CD in the radio and turned up the volume.

SomeBODY once told me the world is gonna roll me,

I ain't the sharpest tool in the shed.

She was looking kind of dumb with her finger and her thumb

In the shape of an "L" on her forehead.

Mabel immediately jumped into rap-like singing, dancing around the porch. Dipper chuckled, hands in his pocket and tapping his foot, but Soos laughed, put down the comic, and took Mabel’s hands to dance. They giggled as they tried to sing along, and at the chorus they stopped dancing so they could sing the lyrics as loud as they could.

“Hey now, you're an all-star, get your game on, go play!

Hey now, you're a rock star, get the show on, get paid!

And all that glitters is gold! 

Only shooting stars break the mold.”

Wendy was banging her head, red hair flying everywhere. Stan suddenly showed up in his boxers and slippers, grinning, and said over the music, “I was awoken by the sound of mockery through pop music! I want in!” He bumped his hips against Dipper to make him move and he danced obnoxiously, making his nephew laugh and dance a little more enthusiastically. 

A little later, at the halfway point of the song, Ford stood at the screen door with a puzzled look. “What’s going on…?”

“Hey now, you're an all-star, get your game on, go play!

Hey now, you're a rock star, get the show on, get paid!

And all that glitters is gold! (I like gold.)

Only shooting stars…”

Ford looked like he had a sunburn on his entire face. He swallowed, making his Adam’s Apple bobble, and his jaw was tight. Stan laughed at his face and hollered, “THERE’S the man of the hour!”

“Come on, Stan Two, you love this song, right?” Wendy teased.

“Oh no…”

“C’mon, Dr. Pines, wanna dance?” Soos asked, still dancing with Mabel.

“Oh, here comes my favorite part…” Mabel chimed in.

“Hey now, you're an all-star, get your game on, go play!

Hey now, you're a rock star, get the show on, get paid!

And all that glitters is gold!

Only shooting stars break the mold.”

Ford slammed the door shut. The five were as still as statues, wincing a little. “Did we take it too far?” Dipper asked.

“Ah, let the big baby be mad for a minute if he wants to.” Stan said, ruffing up his hat. “I’ll go talk to him in a minute…”

But then the door was kicked open by Ford’s boot and his friends and family were startled to find him heavily armed with water guns. “ONLY SHOOTING STARS BREAK THE MOLD!” He sang, and then shot everyone with water.

Everyone broke into hefty laughter and ran for it. The old scientist was hot on their tails, but Mabel managed to slip away to the closet filled with emergency water-guns and balloons. She hurried back to the battle and tossed everyone some weapons, and soon it was a confused mess of soaked clothes, loud laughter, and exploding balloons.

At one point during the fun fight, he paused to take off his glasses and wipe the water from them. Mabel accidentally bumped into his leg and smiled sheepishly at him, expecting to be sprayed without mercy, but Ford hoisted her up in his shoulders and they worked together. Up three feet higher than she was used to being, Mabel could see things she normally couldn’t. Like a certain tattoo barely poking out of the turtleneck, only visible because Mabel’s weight was pulling the sweater down enough. 

She smiled at it, finding it very pretty, and in the midst of the chaos, considered the idea of one day getting one herself.

#GF #gravity falls #ford pines #stan pines #Mabel and Ford bonding #mabel pines #dipper pines #wendy corduroy #soos ramirez #fanfiction #all star #smash mouth #tattoos #legit i laughed for 3 days straight when I found out #now i cant listen to the song without thinking about it #a huge thanks to skaleigh for inpsiring me and making me laugh #love you! #hope you're doing okay

[stiltonbasket]

chancellor of the morning sun: first meeting, xichen (childhood)

In which Lan Xichen stages a rescue and meets her intended husband; or, part 3 of the nielan au that has completely taken over my brain.

Part 1 | Part 2: Lesson (Youth) | Part 3: First Meeting, Mingjue (Childhood) | AO3

“Where are we going, A-Jie?”

“We’re just walking, A-Zhan.”

Her little brother looks doubtfully up at the sky and clutches her hand a little tighter. 

“Jie, wasn’t the leisure hall that way?”

“No,” she says gloomily. “That’s the building where Wen-zongzhu keeps his biting lizards.”

In a manner that rather forebodes ill for the rest of her stay in Qishan, eleven-year-old Lan Huan, first heir to the Gusu Lan clan and courtesy name Xichen, is completely and utterly lost in the immense gardens of the Nightless City’s Sun Palace. She hadn’t meant to get lost, of course; Shufu went off to join the day’s more important audiences with all the rest of the sect leaders, so Xichen and A-Zhan were supposed to stay with the women and children in the leisure wing and enjoy the entertainment Sect Leader Wen had provided for them.

But then one of the boys from the Jiang clan decided to steal the flowers from the vases standing about the room and throw them at A-Zhan, which bothered her poor baby brother so much—both at the sheer shamelessness of it and because the flowers were being wasted—that Xichen led the child back to his mother and bundled A-Zhan off for a walk in the grounds to settle him. And then the two young masters of the Wen sect appeared out of nowhere, offering to show Lan Huan and Lan Zhan around the palace, but Shufu drilled the importance of never being alone with a man she didn’t know or trust into her head so many times that Lan Huan said she was going to join Madam Jin outside and fled as fast as she could. 

She would have suffered the invitation if it had been just Wen Chao, but Wen Xu is past sixteen and nearly as tall as her uncle, and the thought of being alone with him put her on edge.

Shuoyue is not and never has been for show, even if Lan Huan is only eleven, but it has never been proper for a young master older than fourteen or so to invite a strange young maiden to accompany him somewhere without a chaperone. Wen Xu certainly knows that, even if Wen Chao might not have been told just yet, which means the boy is probably untrustworthy in some way or other.

“Will we go see Madam Jin?” A-Zhan asks, tugging at her hand again. “That’s what you told Wen Xu.”

“We can’t,” Lan Huan says regretfully. She met Jin Zixuan briefly at a banquet in the Cloud Recesses last year, and the boy asked his father if he could “marry Maiden Lan instead, since she is prettier than Jiang-guniang,” the moment he thought Lan Huan was out of earshot—which she wasn’t, since all she had done was walk into the next room to have tea with Madam Qin and her daughter, Qin Su. 

Jin Guangshan remarked that it wasn’t a bad idea (which would have stopped Lan Huan’s heart in its tracks, were she not already betrothed to the unknown but not yet insufferable Nie Mingjue, and not fully aware that Shufu only let the engagement stand because he knows her intended’s father is a good man) and asked Jin-furen if they might talk to her uncle about a future courtship. But then, Jin-furen snapped at her son for chasing the first pair of pretty eyes he saw—whatever that meant—and gave Lan Huan nothing but dark looks until the banquet was over. 

So Madam Jin is out of the question, and for a very good, if unfortunate reason. 

“As if I would ever marry Jin Zixuan,” she mutters to herself. The boy isn’t a bad sort, exactly, but very sure that he is the most important person in every room that doesn’t already have his father in it, and Lan Huan has had far too much of that in her time—especially for a girl who refuses to live and cultivate on the women’s side of the Cloud Recesses, and ends up in front of a panel of concerned elders every other month to discuss her unmaidenly behavior, Young Mistress. 

It is at this juncture—when Lan Huan is revisiting the memory of Jin-furen’s determination to keep Jin Zixuan away from her and close to Jiang Yanli while they were all still together in Wen Ruohan’s leisure hall, and seething a little at the thought that Madam Jin seems to believe Lan Huan might fall prey to her son’s nonexistent charms—that A-Zhan tugs at her arm for a third time, and points to a suspicious-looking disturbance on the surface of a nearby pool. 

“Someone fell in, A-Jie,” he says, staring intently at the splashing water before gazing up at her in distress. “Someone small, like me.”

She squints, and then cries out in horrified surprise when a tiny hand flails above the side of the pond before sinking back down again. “Stay here, A-Zhan!” 

Lan Huan throws off the outer two layers of her robes and runs towards the tiled pond so quickly that she nearly trips over her own feet, vaulting over the short stone wall and tumbling into the water just in time to hoist a little bundle of grey and white cloth up against her chest so it can breathe properly again. The pond is less than a foot deeper than she is tall, but the tiny child in her arms can hardly swim, and clings to her neck in terror as she paddles them slowly back towards the water’s edge—Shufu taught her never to cling if someone tried to rescue her from the water when she was very small, but no one seems to have told this baby that, so she fights for breath as best she can before splashing back to the tiled wall and hauling herself and the child out. 

“Don’t cry,” she rasps, vaguely aware that her little charge is wailing into her wet clothes, and that a pair of older boys seem to be running towards them from the far end of the gardens, while also wailing at the top of their lungs. “Can you get your breath, little one?”

“There was a frog!” the small boy sobs, shoving his face against her stomach and hiding it there. “And I chased it, and then I slipped and fell in!”

At least he can breathe, if he’s crying so much, Lan Huan thinks wryly, before sitting up and peeling the child out of his sodden gown. 

“A-Zhan, bring my clothes here,” she instructs, as her brother picks up her fallen white robes and hurries over to her side. Between the two of them, they manage to get the little frog-hunter dry with one of her gowns and warmly wrapped up with the other one, which is when the shrieking boys from earlier—one wearing black and silver, and one in Lanling gold—finally dash down the path and skid to a halt in front of them. 

“Huaisang!” the older one chokes, almost crying himself as he reaches her. “A-Sang, you—”

“I fell in, Gege!” Huaisang squeaks (Nie Huaisang, Xichen realizes) before bursting into tears again as the tall youth falls to his knees in the grass and cuffs him around the ears. “Gege! You’re so mean! I almost died before this jiejie pulled me out, and now you’re hitting me!”

“I’ll hit you again in a minute, just wait!” the boy screeches. “What did you think you were doing, wandering off on your own when I told you not to let go of my hand unless we were back with Father? You could have drowned, A-Sang!”

“That was very foolish, Huaisang,” the second boy says, and Lan Xichen stifles a sigh of despair when she realizes that the new young master’s companion is none other than Jin Zixuan—because today hasn’t been bad enough, apparently. “Nie-da-gongzi was ready to tear the gardens apart when he realized you were gone.”

Nie-da-gongzi. 

This shouting, trembling youth in front of her, clutching his little brother to his heart and berating him at every other breath,  is none other than Lan Xichen’s intended, the person Xichen will bow to earth and heaven beside when she comes of age. 

(How strange it is that they have met in such a way rather than at the banquet scheduled to take place later tonight, as Shufu and Nie-zongzhu both planned.)

“Maiden Lan,” Jin Zixuan blurts out, going a little pink in the cheeks as she spares him a cool, disinterested glance. At her side, A-Zhan squeezes her hand and glares up at the older boy, who takes a few involuntary steps backward before remembering that her brother is only seven years old and wouldn’t hurt a fly. “That was a very brave thing you just did.”

The older Nie-gongzi freezes on the ground, finally looking at her and A-Zhan for long enough to register the blue silk ribbons on their foreheads, and then at the delicate beaded clouds sewn onto the lace-trimmed gown bundled around Nie Huaisang’s shoulders. 

And then, after his mind catches up with his eyes, he looks up at Lan Xichen and prostrates himself at her feet so forcefully that he strikes her damp shoes with his forehead. “Maiden Lan!” he gasps. “Forgive me, I did not see your ribbon, but—I cannot be grateful enough, Lan-guniang, that you saved Huaisang! I and my clan are forever in your debt, a debt that can never be repaid if we tried for a thousand years, but—”

“Give.”

All three of the older children assembled (and Nie Huaisang, now suspiciously cheerful again as he snuggles into his borrowed robe) look around for the source of the reproof before realizing that Lan Zhan had spoken, pointing straight at Nie Mingjue with his tiny forefinger outstretched in threat like one of Shufu’s discipline rulers. 

“Ah, what?” Young Master Nie says gently. “What should I give, Lan-xiao-gongzi?”

“Give Jie your robe. She’ll freeze if you don’t.”

The weather—yet another nail in the coffin of Lan Xichen’s afternoon, though coming face to face with her betrothed has been one of the few tolerable things about it—chooses that moment to send a frigid wind over the gardens, making Xichen shiver despite herself as Nie-gongzi straightens up and takes off his outer gown. Jin Zixuan seems to realize then that Lan Xichen is only in her inner garments, turning his face away in embarrassment while Lan Zhan takes the robe from Nie Mingjue and helps his sister into it. 

“Thank you, Nie-gongzi,” she says, tying the wide sash securely around her waist. “It would have been strange to walk all the way back to the guest quarters without my overgown. Shall I return this to you in the morning, after I have the time to have it washed?”

“Oh, there’s no need!” Nie Mingjue cries, waving his hands in the air as Jin Zixuan turns to stare at him in disbelief. “That’s a talisman robe, so it’ll be fine even if your inner robe isn’t clean after the pond water. And it’ll dry your inner robes off too in a minute, so you can be warm on your way back to the palace.”

He dithers on the spot for a moment, and then bows low at the waist. “May I see you and the little young master safely back to your uncle, Maiden Lan?”

“You may,” Lan Xichen agrees, moving to take her brother’s hand before running back to fetch Shuoyue, which she dropped into a flowerbed some thirty feet away when she removed her two outer garments. “There, I’m ready. Come along, A-Zhan.”

“That’s a beautiful jian,” Nie Mingjue remarks as they set off down one of the garden paths—he seems to know where he’s going, to Lan Xichen’s relief, which will hopefully squash their chances of having another unfortunate adventure between here and the Sun Palace’s guest wing. “I like the jade stripe down the middle of the scabbard. Did you choose it yourself?”

“Yes, I did,” she smiles, rather glad at the prospect of someone liking Shuoyue. The elders insisted that eleven was too young to carry a sword in public, even though her core was so advanced that she had gained enough control over it to fly on a jian by the time she was six—so wearing it to gatherings often feels like an act of defiance, and one she wishes she never had to perform. “It has a white-jade handle too, see?”

“Marvelous,” Nie-gongzi agrees, sounding a little breathless as he gazes at the weapon with stars in his eyes. “You know, all of the swords I’ve seen from the Lan clan are decorated with white and silver finishings, but the green jade on yours looks wonderful. It’s like—like a pine tree, and the white jade at the handle looks like snow.”

He takes in a breath and gathers himself up, and then—

“Do you like sabers? I have a very good one. She’s called Baxia.”

“Baxia, like the sihai longwang’s eighth son?” Lan Xichen frowns, trying to remember exactly which son of the dragon god of the four seas shared the saber’s name. “Or was it the sixth, the turtle-dragon?”

“Baxia’s name is split between them both, actually,” Nie Mingjue says shyly. “The sixth one is called Bixi, too. It’s about the only piece of legend I know by heart, since I don’t read very much, but of course I had to learn the story behind my dao’s name so I could tell people about it.”

“It’s a very strong name. And fitting, since the figure of the eighth son guards bridges, and the Unclean Realm is said to be a great fortress with many raised terraces over the lower courts for archers.”

“That’s exactly why I chose it!” he exclaims. “We have statues of Lord Baxia all over the stronghold, but no one’s ever called their saber that before.”

The conversation proceeds in much the same vein all the way back to Shufu’s rooms, and by the end of it Lan Xichen has learned more about the Nie clan’s cultivation than she thought she would ever have the chance to, since none of the five great sects like to share their secrets with outsiders. In return, she tells Nie Mingjue about the chord assassination path, and how likes cultivating with Liebing better because the xiao is useful even outside combat—and the boy’s eyes go even rounder as she plays a few notes meant to relieve sore muscles and cure headaches, wiping away the little furrow between his brows as his shoulders finally relax.

“Our clan prefers an honorable battle to settle matters,” Nie-gongzi admits, as they reach her uncle’s door. “But healers are far superior, because they must mend the hurts that warriors leave behind.”

Shufu throws the door open before Lan Xichen can reply, ushering her and A-Zhan over the threshold before realizing that Xichen is dressed in the colors of a young master from Qinghe instead of Lan blue and white; and then he notices that Nie Mingjue is missing his fourth layer, and that the child in his arms is wearing Lan Xichen’s outer robe, and then that Lan Zhan is carrying her second one, since they used it as a towel to dry Nie Huaisang. 

“Xichen,” he sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Would you care to tell me what happened here, and why you are over an hour late back to our quarters?”

“A-Zhan and I got lost on our way back to the leisure hall, and we found Young Master Nie after he fell into one of the pools in the garden,” she says, studiously ignoring the puzzled glances Jin Zixuan and Nie Mingjue exchange behind her back  at the mention of her courtesy name. “I pulled him out and gave him one of my robes to keep him warm, and so Nie-da-gongzi gave me his. This niece is most sorry for worrying you, Shufu.”

Her uncle frowns and opens his mouth—probably to scold someone, though she can’t be sure just who yet—but then Nie Huaisang’s stomach rumbles from his perch against his brother’s shoulder, and Lan Xichen (trained by over half a lifetime of looking after A-Zhan, since she had to be his mother in A-Niang’s place because A-Niang couldn’t) finds herself reaching for one of the qiankun pouches in A-Zhan’s sleeve before passing it to Nie Mingjue.

“Thank you, Maiden Lan,” he says, confused. “I will...I mean, this gift...uh, what is it?”

“I baked a batch of red-bean pastries for the trip, since Shufu and A-Zhan like them,” Xichen replies, watching with a warm glow in her stomach as Nie Huaisang reaches over to undo the drawstring and squeals in delight when his hands close around a pile of fresh buns. “A-Sang should eat as many as he likes—he just fell into cold water, after all, and I always carry food in talisman pouches to keep it warm.”

“Lan-guniang,” Nie Mingjue gasps. “This is too much, we couldn’t possibly—”

“You five missed the lunch banquet, and there will be no more food for any of you until dinner,” Shufu snaps at him. “Take it, Young Master Nie, since my niece has offered, and get that child into a hot bath before he catches his death of cold. Now, I bid you good afternoon, for heaven’s sake try to come to the evening feast with the full four layers of robes on your shoulders.”

And then he slides the door shut in Nie Mingjue’s face, turning on Xichen and Lan Zhan with a scowl that melts into a thoughtful sort of look before either of them have time to do much more than wilt in resignation for the lecture ahead. 

But then he sighs, and tucks his hands behind his back before smiling at Lan Xichen. 

“So you have met your betrothed, A-Huan,” he says, sounding as if he might laugh, for some reason. “What do you think? Do you like him?”

Lan Xichen would have liked to say something along the lines of yes, he seems all right, Shufu, or I’m sure he and I will get along well when we’re older—but her tongue betrays her, in the end, and all Xichen can find words for is this:

“I do like Nie-gongzi, Shufu,” she confesses. “I like him very much.”

#nielan #lan xichen #nie mingjue #chancellor of the morning sun #nielan arranged marriage au #the untamed #my fic #mo dao zu shi

[sunflowercakemix]

Chuuya Nakahara x fem/Reader

/ Part 2

Reader P. O. V

,,..... There's waffles in the air, but flour in my hair.... " I sang softly carrying a large tray of cakes from the oven through the buzz of the bakery kitchen. The warm vanilla scent embraced me from the back as I got further from the oven station just for to quickly be replaced by the crisp air filled with the sound of crackling, wisking and busy foot steps from the main baking area. I change my singing tune happily as I develop a bounce to my step, my happiness blossoming into a little flower in my chest only for it to wither away with a loud yell " OI, L/N MOVE IT OVER THERE! THE CUSTOMERS AIN'T GONNA WAIT THE WHOLE MORNIN'!"

A sour thought and expression follow from me "Wow boss you really know how to motivate, eh?". I wave my boss away placing tray of cakes on a large table and walking out of his sight.

Right as I step back into the main kitchen I go back to tending to my flower of happiness, enjoying the scent playing in my nose. "Back to work Y/N!" I tell myself.

On their own my hands start moving, picking up flower and sugar. Trough my fingertips I let my emotions flow, right into the bowl with the mix. I let the stars of my dreams and lightning of my fear melt away in the bater, just to pour it in the mold to shove it in the oven to settle.

Closing up my first batch of the day I steal a glance at the people at the cash registre. I smile softly wishing I could see their faces or hear their heartbeat when they take the first bite, to see them be engulfed in the world I've baked. A smile tugs on my warm cheek one more time as I go back to baking with a new tune to my lips to my bosses dismay.

Third person P. O. V

Black hallways of the Port Mafia building echoed with the steps of a coat draped ginger wallking through them. The shallow sound following him all the way to large doors to his bosses office.

,,... Boss" the ginger said stepping inside.

,, Ah, Chuuya-kun you're here!".

Chuuya's boss, Mori Ougai, leaned to look at him from his kneeling position from the floor in front of a young blonde girl.

Chuuya quickly bowed ,, My apologies for interrupting you Sir but you quickly requested me to come here"

Mori started getting up from the floor. ,, In fact I did. The situation is rather urgent. Some of our smmuglers have turned out to be in fact another organization stealing from us. They have stolen an impressive amount of our cargo. " He sat at his desk ,, An impressive amount that's worth over 80 000 yen on the black market"

Chuuya nodded to this ,, So what's the plan?"

,, You'll take the Black Lizard on a raid to their hideout, leave the leaders alive and bring them to me. Understood?"

,, Yes boss! "

,, Good."

Chuuya bowed again as he exited the office.

                                 - || -

,, Damn it! The sun is gonna kill me." Chuuya cursed under his breath as he walked in front of a large tunnel. ,, Oya, and underground organization? This just might finnaly become interesting." he thought with a smirk.

Feverish red glow started to appear around him, his footsteps increasing in force 10 times as he started to walk inside of the darkness of the tunel.

,, These fuckers really are about to see what it's like to be crushed by gravity. "

Reader P. O. V

The noons in the bakery were always quiet so it wasn't very surprising to see most of my co-workers lazing around or smoking outside by the park.

These were also the times I used to work on my own recepies and notes since the kitchen was mostly empty.

The soft spikes of silence were scraping on my back as I was measuring honey over a bowl. I was enjoying my peacfull time until an explosion ripped from the park.

Dropping my utencials in shock, I snap my head towards the glass door where I see my co-workers gathering outside. I hurriedly join them, shaking.

They are yelling and pointing to the park near by, all of them soon silenced by another much bigger explosion. This one being followed by a wave of red glow pushing the whole crowd away.

,, Fuck no, I'm not dying today!!" was all my shaken up brain could muster.

My wobbly legs carried me back inside, where it was crammed with people. Both bystanders and workers.

Another explosion roared piercing the glass. ,, GURL get the hell out of here!" my head yelled and I listened. Pushing out through the crowd I found my way to the back ally behind the bakery. Hiding behind old boxes and garbage cans I hugged my knees hoping to calm my heart, wich was about to burst from fear. My hiding spot smelled like shit, but my best hope was that shit was gonna get blown up instead of me.

Third person P. O. V

Chuuya sent another piece of concrete flying ,,Hirotsu, call for back up!! We're losing here!!!".

As he yelled the piece he had sent flying  came back at him full force, followed by a wave of green acid.

,, Damn gifted..." Chuuya wipped the blood of his lip. The boss didn't tell him that the three leaders seem to have very powerful abilities. Two of them being the one he was fighting now.

One of them being able to copy his opponent's attacks the other one being able to control acid. The Black Lizard was currently fighting the third one, who was able to multiply herself.

No wonder they were able to steal so much.

Chuuya kept on attacking trying his best to then dodge his own moves, plus a rain of acid.

,, This is the feared Port Mafia?!?" asked the acid controler mockingly. ,, Im surprised you even figured us out with the weak ass game you showing here!" he yelled walking over to Chuuya who was now laying on the ground. The acid guy smirked and with a whip of his hand sent a hit of acid across Chuuya's chest.

Chuuya yelled from the pain. He tried to attack again, the pain on his chest making him weaker. The acid controler was preparing another hit when a black shadow punched through the air knocking him to the ground.

Chuuya tried lifting his head ,,Aktagawa?". He didn't get an answer just an image of a man in a black coat with a blonde female at his tail shooting.

Explosions different from earlier started forming around, stepped up by gun shots in the back.

Weak from his injuries Chuuya couldn't move until a nasty blast blew him away, knocking him unconscious while the shots contuied in the back.

Reader P. O. V

My knees and my mind kept shaking. I heard screams in the far open. I wanted join them in their demonstration of fear but I also felt like I needed to do something to help. Yet I stayed there quvivering.

I shut my numb eyes, I forgot how to blink in this ruckus, until I heard another blow closer to my hiding spot.

"FUCK I'M GONNA DIE" I thought

A thud followed, I got up ready to run until I saw body of an unconscious man laying in the beging of the ally way.

,, Someone else will help him.... " I looked around for that someone then another explosion came. ,,Aaaand that someone is me!"

I ran over to him and pulled him back to the place where I was hiding.

The bangs and thuds continued to bloom all around us. I looked over at the ginger man I pulled from the street hoping he would wake up so we could run from here.

He was out cold.

I couldn't just leave him there but neither could I run with him like this , so I just hugged my shaking knees again, praying that this would end soon.

Reared P. O. V

The chaos was finnaly cleared when it was deep in the night. The silence following it even harsher then the sounds of explosions before it.

I peeped out of my hidding, I saw police helping the scared or the injured on the streets but avoiding the area of the explosions.

I heard something shuffle next to me I quickly turn to find the ginger man opening his eyes.

With a lot of effort two bule eyes started looking into me.

,, Who the hell are.... You?!?" he snapped through his teeth.

,, Ummm.... Y/N... I'm Y/N!"

He kept panting and staring at me. ,, You better not be... AAGH!!" He yelped mid sentence clutching his chest.

,, Oh my god, are you ok?!?" I ask quickly.

He didn't answer.

,, The police is over there they can help you and.. "

,, NO, not the police! Just..." he went quiet again.

I looked at him worried. "He's not dying. Is he?!" I thought. Back at the street the sight seemed to have cleared. I put his arm over my shoulder.

,, What are you doing?!?" he snaps at me.

,, Sshh I'm gonna help you. Try to stay concious!"

Pulling the man with me through the back door into bakery kitchen I helped him sit on a table and lean against the wall.

,, Where are you hurt?" I ask. He points to his chest. I'm not given a chance to say more because he just started taking of his shirt.

A blush runs to my face. ,,Stop standing there and help me out. Do you have a faucet over here?" he asks. I lead him to the faucet where he washes what I now notice to be a burn. After washing it off he bandages himself up with the first aid kid I dug up from the drawers.

,, How are you feeling now?"

,, It hurts, but I'm better now" he replies. ,,Thank you.... erghh.. "

,, Y/N"

,, Thank you, Y/N"

His head leans against the wall making his hat drape over his eyes. ,, And mind if I ask who are you? " I cautiously break the silence.

He looks back at me,, Im Chuuya. Chuuya Nakahara"

,, Nice to meet you then, and one more thing why did you avoid the police when you clearly need help?" a little bravery awakes in me as I speak.

,, You don't play around, huh? Don't worry about that my boss took care of that" a smirk grows on his lips ,,You should worry about you breaking in here"

,, Hah! Nice try but I work here" I smirk back with pride.

,, What you're a baker?". He winces from pain a little as he speaks.

,, Mhm" I answer ,,Are you sure you are ok?"

A sighs comes out of him ,,I am just... Can you help me with my shirt, I... need to get going"

I sport a faint blush again as I help him with his shirt and coat. ,,You are sure about this? You don't seem ok"

He fixes his hat as he weakly gets off the table ,, I am".

Even with that strong reply I still am not convinced ,, Like 100% sure? "

I hear a light chuckle from him ,, 100% sure, thank you again Y/N" he tips his hat towards me.

,, It's nothing, hope you get back, wherever you came from, safe. Chuuya"

As I watch him leave through the back door with a weak step I try to sink in the strange man I had just met.

Chuuya P. O. V

The plush of the pillow in infirmary supported my head as the doctor tied new bandages to my back. The burn from that acid asshole was sure to leave a scar he said.

,, A-and that should do it" the doctor said. Soon after that we heard the door open.

,, How are you Chuuya-kun?". I recoginsed the voice and got up.

,, Much better Boss"

He nodded his head and as if on que the doctor left the room to us.

,, Im sorry to be the barer of bad news but I have to tell you that the group  got away, and that the most of the cargo was either destroyed or used in the battle"

,, THOSE SONS OF A BITCH" I stumped my fist on the mattress

,, Calm down Chuuya. This is a great loss for the Mafia but if we manage to catch them we will get much more than we have lost"

,, What do you mean?"

,, This organization has been trying to overthrow the Port Mafia by making deals with other groups. If we kill them we will get the money they offered to other groups and get fear in the bones of those who belived they could beat us." he paused to look at me ,, But for that I expect to see you back at work soon"

I nod ,, You will boss"

                               

                                    - || -

I was going back from the head quarters, carrying with me weight of a failed mission. It stung even worse than that burn on my chest.

I started looking around the streets of Yokohama thinking how a nice a bottle of wine will ease my sorrows when I get home.

This was the plan until I noticed a broken glass door. Behind it a familiar sighing sillouet tapping her fingers on the registre.

I decided to drown my troubles with something else.

Reader P. O. V

It's been three days since the bomb attacks and because the bakery was the closest to the scene of crime many people have become scared to come here, and the few gossipers wich did show up were only greeted with broken shop windows.

Guess that was preety flavorless for them since they never stayed long to buy anything.

Ticking of the clock was the only thing keeping me company. For the first time I couldn't wait to get out of here. The closing shifts were never fun.

Ticking then got interrupted by the sound of the bell above the door signaling a customer.

,, Is this still open?" the customer asked.

To my great surprise it was the man I pulled from the street.

,, Oh, it's you!?"

He walked over to the counter. ,, Hello Y/N"

Damn, he even remembers my name. ,,Um, hi! What brings you here?"

I ask.

,, I noticed you on the counter and rembered you work here, so I thought I should try what you gotta offer" he replied now looking at the displayed cakes and sweets.

Light crackles through me. This is my chance. ,,You know these displayed ones aren't the best tasting ones, right?" he raises an eyebrow to this ,,Really?"

,, Yup! Sit over there I'll join you soon". I run towards the kitchen and start cutting up a piece of strawberry cake I baked with my own recepie. The one boss refused to display.

     

                                 - || -

Carrying my pride and joy back I find the man sitting at a table looking around.

,, Heree you go~" I sing placing the cake in front of him. As he examines the piece I sit beside him placing my head on my hands. Heart thumping in wait to see his reaction.

Chuuya P. O. V

I wanted to grab a pastry and leave and yet I ended up here. Sitting in front of a girl with litteral fireworks pouring out of her eyes.

,, You really love your job, eh?" I ask. She laughs ,, My, my what gave it away!"

,, Your eyes and how you litteraly jumped at an opportunity to give me this cake" I honestly reply, turning my eyes back on the cake.

She crooks an eyebrow ,, You really don't miss anything?" she smiles ,, And I gotta say you're absolutely right. But I think it will be even clearer when you try the cake. Now chop, chop!"

I listen to her and place a fork in my mouth.

I feel my eyes go wide. It's like I just swallowed a ball of melted flowers in my mouth.

,, You.. You made this!? " I ask. Her sparkling eyes were on the verge of popping out. ,, I did. Do you like it?!"

,, It's amazing!" I greedily take another bite. A smile rivaling the sun appears on her face. Warming up the room.

The cake soon dissapered from the plate wich her didn't fail to notice.

,, Would you like some more?" she smirks. I cover my half full mouth to answer ,, Yes please!"

A chuckle follows her as she grabs the plate from me.

Soon she comes back. ,, You know I'm really glad you stopped by today! Since that whole bombing incident we haven't had many customers."

Guilt starts to wash over my throat. ,, Really?"

,, Yeah, it's not that fun without customers. Seeing their faces when they eat our treats to me is the greatest charm to baking!" she leans her head back smiling.

I continue to enjoy the cake and Y/N's radiating happiness when she speaks up again.

,, By the way, how did you end up getting caught in that blast back then? If you don't mind me asking."

I choke up a little. ,,I had buissnes there".

Her eyebrow quirks again ,, Some dangerous buissnes, eh? I hope your injury wasn't too bad"

Trying to brush off the conversation I say ,, I'm fine now thank you for asking".

,, You do kinda give me the gangster vibe". I don't think she knew how dangerous those words were.

,, Anyhow, I should get going. How much will this be?" I get up from the table.

,, It's on the house" Y/N says.

,, Hah! Do you do this for all your customers?" I laugh

,, Nah, only for the ones I like and besides" she gets up from her seat ,, You gave me the positive feedback I need to get that cake on the menu so thank you for that!"

The room felt warm again with her words I couldn't help but smile myself

,,In that case I'm glad I stopped by"

I walk over to the door as her voice rings through the room ,, Come again soon!"

#anime #nakahara chuuya #Bungou stray dogs #Chuuya x reader #Chuuya Nakahara x reader #BSD #bsd