#but sometimes there's just. nothing pinging for any of them and so much going on and they care so genuinely for each other | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

neoarchipelago · 9 months

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Just saw a TikTok where a kid send their favorite stuff animal to his dad who's deployed. Just imagine this happening with 141 🥺 (I'm actually sending this to my favorite writers hoping I can get a cute scenario 😅)

That sounds adorable... I melted at the thought. Sorry it got very angst with Ghost but I'm feral for this man and I'd give him babies any time he wants.

Warning: slight NSFW, f!reader, angst and comfort

Price:

Price would frown but have a little smirk, watching the recruit hand him a cardboard box. His smile spreads when he notices figures of who it is from.

He wouldn't mind opening it in front of the team. They'd be busy bickering anyway.

He swears his heart stops for a second and he sees the soft thing. He could recognize it in the middle of the battlefield, the awful thought putting a ping of anger in his heart.

He'd be silent for a moment, looking at the round pink thing, his mind instantly wandering home, to you and your daughter.

He took the tiny note, scribbled a bit. "Keep you company daddy. Love, mom and me"

He swears he could cry right now.

He keeps it in his barracks, hidden so well no one ever glanced at it until he left. He wouldn't dare taking it with him, not wanting to soil it with he horrors of the battlefield.

He hugs it at night, until the day he returns, his daughter running to him as he holds the stuffed animal who kept his sanity strong.

He makes sure to worship you that night, thanking you silently for making him the happiest man on earth. In the morning you're sore but oh so happy. He whispers sweet nothings as he helps prepare breakfast, thanking you for giving him a daughter and home to come to.

Soap:

Soap would be thrilled to see the box for him. He wouldn't even wait to open it, under the amused gazes of the team.

He'd smile brightly at the sight of the little shark, immediately taking the note to read it out loud "to help you fight daddy!"

He run around the room, holding it up in the air, voicing to his team how happy he was, how proud of his son and how he absolutely loved you for giving him such a gift .

He'd keep it at all times at base. The round thing on the table in front of him during meetings.

He calls it Sergeant Sharky, everyone starting referring it by the same name.

At night he hold it tight, it's more intimate. He can let himself feel the way he misses home, almost tearing up. He knows you're waiting for him at home, probably preparing for his arrival.

He swears he's the happiest man alive.

When he gets home he tells stories of Sergeant Sharky on the battlefield (never anything gory) his boy being in absolute amazement over how his favorite stuffed animal was a hero with his dad.

He absolutely ravages you that night, almost begging you for another kid, begging to make him a daddy again. He just praises you for being the best mama, the best wife. He has you limping by morning as he holds his son, running around with him as he winks at you, subtly hinting to his son to ask you for a sibling.

Gaz:

I feel like gaz would open it with the team too. Though he'd be much more hidden and private about it.

He immediately smiles when he sees the little white bear inside of the box. He can't help the sadness and yearning he feels almost immediately.

The images of you, laughing in the morning as his son jumps on the bed to wake him up makes his throat burn slightly.

He found the indulging gaze of Price who noticed the fluffy thing.

He'd read the note to himself, hiding it from anyone's gaze.

"to take care of you daddy" he has to blink away the blurriness.

He'd be more secret about it, but as soon as his in his tent the toy is with him at all times. He finds himself sometimes talking to it. "Yeah... I miss home too. We'll go back to them."

He finds himself with a new strength, the battle almost feeling less heavy on him. He's doing it for you. For his son. To try and make the world a better place.

He almost runs home from the airport, throwing the front door open, bags dropping to the floor as you see him. Your mouth opens slightly, shocked, but he sees the relief in your eyes. He kisses you deeply, the sound of tiny running footsteps from the hallway making his heart stammer in his chest.

He's home. That night he makes love to you, lovingly, sweetly and with such love that you find yourself crying and clinging to him. He finds himself absolutely loving the way your son runs into the room by morning, waking him up. He doesn't give a shit how tired he is.

Ghost:

Oh god... Here I go...

When he's handed the box, he frowns. He immediately retreats to his tent to open it. He freezes when he sees the white and brown bunny.

He's scared to touch it. His gloves feel disgusting and tainted with horrors. He rips them off his hands, putting the box down on his bed to rush to wash his hands. They're clean, albeit sweaty but he just can't seem to shake away the feeling of blood on them.

When he finally let's himself touch the soft thing he holds it like it's the most fragile thing he ever touched. It shouldn't be here. So close to him when he's a monster right now.

The note breaks him. "Come back to us" it's your writing, she's too small to write. But there's a tiny sun scribbled in pencil next to it.

He rips off his mask bringing the bunny to his forehead as his head bows down, closing his eyes. He's crying. He feels guilty from being away from you. From his daughter. From home. Home that you allowed him, after he had thought he'd never be worthy of it.

It stays in his things. Hidden. He very rarely takes it out. Tries to not look at it too much. He's almost protecting it from even witnessing the base. Keeping it away from Ghost. That he tried to keep at the front door every time he came home.

When he gets home he needs time. It's always the same. He calls you, announcing that he is back. He takes 24h to remain on base, letting himself split from the battlefield. He needs time. You know it. You understood it.

When he gets home you notice something else this time. His eyes look at you with such adoration that you catch yourself almost hyperventilating. He often looks at you with love and care. But right now he looks at you like you were his goddess, his air and life essence. The same look he gives your daughter, like she's the only thing that ever matters to him.

He sits on the couch later, handing the bunny to his daughter who beams at the sight of her bunny back. He softly thanked her for sending the bunny to him. Softly explains that she should keep it home, it'd get dirty with daddy. You noticed the subtle message underneath his words. You want to hug him. But of course she understands. Such a clever girl.

He fucks you passionately and hard. He marks you with hickeys and bites, he gets lost in you, lost in your scent, the soft sheets are freshly clean. Your moans anchor him to his new found paradise.

He's got a small need to breed you again. But he'd talk to you about it. Beg on his knees if necessary, hoping that you'd be merciful to grant him another miracle. (As if he needed to do anything else but simply ask. Like you weren't the one who'd kneel for him if he asked.)

If you were the one to start the conversation, about, perhaps, maybe, if there was a chance, at some point "just spill it out love" "I want a baby... Again"

Absolutely feral. Literally throws your pill to the trash. It's on.

Doesn't let go of his daughter for days. She's in heaven as daddy holds her whenever she wants, reads her stories and plays with her. He keeps bending you over the nearest surface if she's napping or playing at a family's house (extremely rare, he's a protective wolf over her)

Spoils her rotten, he feels so guilty for leaving for such long periods of time. Spoils you as well.

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samkerrworshipper · 6 months

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Would you please be able to write something about you getting the call up for the WC and calling Sam afterwards crying. Just lots of fluff xx

Thank you

the phone call | sam kerr x lionesses reader

sorry my lovelies… i’m still yet to leave bed because of this pain flare up

sorry if i’m not interacting with your messages and kind words.. trying to limit my screen time but i promise im seeing them all and it means the world to me

for now you all get some little drabbles that are sitting in my drafts xo

It’s 6pm.

The calls were supposed to start going out at 4 and it’s 6.

You’re paralysed, stuck to your spot on the couch, your feet anxiously tied up in the blanket draped over you as you stare down at your phone, patiently awaiting a call.

It hasn’t been an easy ride to get to this point, almost a year ago you were lying in a hospital bed, unmoving and unsure whether you’d ever walk again, let alone be in contention to play football for your country.

You’ve worked your ass off, tens of hundreds of hours in the gym, rehabbing, working on your strength, all for this call.

You know realistically that the longer you’re left waiting, the longer that your chances are depleting.

Coaches make the easiest calls first, the starting eleven, then their moving bench, players who will still get plenty of time on the pitch, then they move onto the maybe players, players whose skill sets might be needed depending on the team, then it’s onto the emergency players, then it’s the fillers, players that are just kind of on the squad because of courtesy, even though the chances that they will play is next to nothing.

In your mind, you fall into some place between the last two, Sarina doesn’t owe you anything though, the last time you played for her was the Euro’s semi final, when everything went to shit for you and sure, you’ve worked hard since then, but sometimes hard work isn’t always enough, especially in the world of soccer politics.

You sent Sam out of the house to run some errands half an hour ago, insisting you would be fine, but right now you wished you hadn’t, because there is nothing you need more than to be cuddled up in your fiancé’s arms.

She’s been there for you every single step of the way, quite literally being the person who helped you walk your first steps after surgery.

The road has been tough for the both of you, and you know there is nothing Sam wants more than for you to be with her in Australia over the Summer.

If it isn’t meant to be, then it isn’t, you’ll be there anyways on the sidelines supporting her but there is something so much more satisfying about knowing that you might get to be on the pitch beside her.

You don’t know what you’ll do if you are back in the squad, sure you’ve been to the last two camps, but being named in the actual squad is something else, especially for the world cup, it would mean the whole world to you.

Your thoughts are enough to drain out the ping from messages, but the desperate vibration in your hands isn’t.

Your eyes dart down to the screen, bursting open like you’d just consumed a energy drink when Sarina’s name pops up on your screen.

‘If you have a spare minute would love to chat whenever your free.’

You’ve been free since 12pm last night, sleep didn’t come for you, instead you’d sat by the phone, waiting for any kind of notification.

Sam had tried her hardest to pry you away, forcing you to come on a morning run with her, which was extremely abnormal, neither you or Sam where runners, but you assumed it was just your girlfriend trying to make you feel a little bit better.

You typed at your phone like a mad man, unwilling to miss this precious window that seemed to have opened for you, you didn’t even had the chance to actually think about Sarina actually calling you, too busy furiously tapping at the keyboard on your phone.

‘Free to chat whenever suits you’

You didn’t have much time to look at your text, mere seconds after the bubble went blue Sarina’s contact was popping up on your screen.

You couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do much more than aggressively tap the green button and watch as the call connected and Sarina’s face popped up on your screen.

“Y/n, good to see you, how’s your day been? I’ve been told there is quite a storm in London today?”

You don’t want to talk about weather, or this as trivial as how your day is going, but you put a smile on for Sarina anyways, a cute little smile that you normally save for press conferences after a particularly bad match or rough game.

“Sarina, it’s an honour as always, I’m doing well thanks, the weather is definitely shocking but we’re used to it, how’s it doing in the Netherlands?”

Sarina smiles at you, and it makes you feel a little bit uneasy, why can’t she just rip the bandaid off.

“It’s nice today, blue skies. How’s Sam? I don’t know if I had the chance to congratulate you on your engagement yet.”

You put on another little smile, trying to act like the nerves growing in your stomach aren’t bubbling up so badly that you feel as if you’re about to vomit.

“Sam’s good, we’re very happy, I’ve sent her out to get groceries which I’m regretting because she hasn’t got a clue what we need.”

Sarina laughs heartily, and it’s almost enough to make you feel a little bit better about the whole situation.

“Well I hope she’ll be happy to know that you’ll be in Australia over the Summer playing for England, if you’d like?”

All thoughts in your brain are cut off when you catch onto what Sarina is saying and then all of a sudden you can feel the tears building up in the back of your eyes.

“You’re serious? You want me in Australia?”

Sarina just laughs once again.

“You were part of our winning Euro’s team y/n, there is nothing I would love more than to welcome you back. You are a crucial part of our defence, especially with Leah missing and there is nothing we need more than your leadership. You’ve been fantastic on the pitch recently, both club and at camp, if you keep performing as you are, I think you’ll be very deserving of taking your place back in the starting eleven, how does that sound?”

You have to put your hand over your mouth to stop yourself from sobbing.

“Thank you so much Sarina, you genuinely don’t know how much this means to me, I’ll prove to you everyday that I deserve to be there and I’ll do whatever I can on and off the pitch to help the team.”

Sarina just smiles to herself.

“I don’t doubt that at all, all I ask is that you try your hardest, I’ll let you go now y/n, have a good couple of weeks, I’ll see you at the airport.”

Before you can embarrass yourself any further, you're wishing Sarina farewell and pressing the red button at the bottom of your screen.

It takes a few seconds for it all to set in for you, the happenings of your phone call slowly sinming into your brain.

It’s when it all sinks in that you realise tears are still dripping down your face, and before you can think about it too hard your searching for Sam’s contact and clicking the call button.

To Sam’s credit, it takes about three seconds before your girlfriends face pops up on your screen.

“I think I might need a shopping list- baby why are you crying?”

Just looking at Sam makes you perk up a little bit, she’s all flustered which you don’t see very often.

“Sarina called, I’m in the squad, she wants me in the squad.”

Just saying it creates a whole other wave of emotions of flowing, and this time you don’t even try to stop the sobs leaving your mouth.

Sam lights up immediately.

“Baby, that is awesome, I’m not surprised at all, I’m leaving the shops now, I’ll be home in five minutes we can talk about it then, hmm?”

You nod eagerly, a big smile breaking out across its face.

“I’m so proud of you babe, you’ve worked so hard for this, I’ll be home in a couple of minutes, okay?”

You just nod at Sam, far to giddy to do much besides jerk your head up and down like a energised puppy.

You weren’t quite sure what the future held for your Summer in Australia, but you that no matter what, no matter the injuries, setbacks, bad games, Sam would be there for you through it all, she’d be there for you, no matter what side of the dug out you were sitting on.

#woso #woso community #lionesses #sam kerr imagine #on my knees for sammy k #i love sam kerr #samantha may #sam kerr x reader #sam kerr #sam kerr is daddy #sweet sam #woso imagines #woso imagine #woso one shot #woso fanfics #woso soccer #woso couples

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ohtobeleah · 1 year

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Chronos // Robert Bob Floyd

Summary: Bob told you that Chronos carried a sickle, that he used it to cut a hole, a tear in the cosmos between heaven and earth. Chronos did that to separate this world from the next, to separate the known from the unknown.

And while someone by the name of Pete Mitchell told you over the phone that your husband had been involved in a training accident….Well—you felt as if you'd fallen straight into it.

Warnings: Bob Floyd x Pregnant F!reader. F-18 accident. Medical inaccuracies. Birth. Bob Whump, ANGST. Major character death.

Word Count: 6.1k

Author Note: Today is Monday, for most of you it’s Sunday: Please enjoy this oneshot that’s been a work in progress since the 28th of March. ~ Last minute title name change. I’m posting this at 4am my time so blow this up.

First there was a storm of carbon and molten rock which begat granite and soil. Then, the land shook and it cracked and it rose till it spiked the sky. Forest grew and died and grew a hundred times again. And then people grew and died and grew and died a hundred times again. There were storms and seasons and fences and blood. Wonder and vengeance and a whole lot of regret….

And through every grievance, every war, the land and the sky didn't give two shits about any of it. Bob Floyd knew that as he and his front seater, Natasha Phoenix Trance, fell through the sky in a tin bird designed by man, for man to destroy other men….

That it wouldn't give two shits about them either.

“Extinguishing right engine!” There were far too many sounds coming from every system possible as Phoenix tried to regain control of the F-18 that seemed impossible to wrangle. All Bob could think about in those utterly terrifying moments was you.

He’d always made it a promise to come home to you. He knew how much you worried about him, how much the thought of being left behind ping ponged around in your brain. How sometimes you'd stay up all hours of the night hoping that wherever he was and whatever ocean he flew across that he was okay. That he was safe and that he;d come home to you.

Robert Floyd had made you a promise he had every intention of keeping, but he wasn't so sure he could.

“Phoenix, Bob! Punch out! Punch out!” Maverick shouted through the comms as he chased the rogue fighter jet down. Bob looked around at all the warnings flashing in his face, there was nothing left to save except themselves.

“Phoenix there’s warning lights everywhere, we’re in hydraulic failure!” All Bob prayed for in those terrifying moments as his colleagues watched on in pure shock horror from the ground below was that he’d get a chance to tell you he loved you again.

He always told you that he’d come home, that there wasn’t a chance in hell that he wouldn’t. You knew better than to believe Government Property though, Bob knew you knew that there was always a chance. So he promised in the event of his untimely demise that he’d come back to you and wiggle your earlobe. To let you know he made it safe and sound. That you need not worry about him anymore.

You promised him the same thing, because working from home was just as terrifying as flying a multimillion dollar fighter jet.

“I can’t control it!” But as the ground grew closer and closer, Bob knew he wasn’t ready to die, he wasn’t ready to leave you behind and he certainly wasn’t ready to not meet his unborn child.

“We’re going down, Phoenix! We’re going in! We’re going in!” He wasn’t ready to wiggle your ear.

“You can’t save it! eject, eject!” Maverick shouted again, he was watching on like he’d been sucked into some kind of timeloop. He’d seen this happen before. Only he lost his best friend when to this day he thought it should have been him.

“Eject! Eject! Eject!” Were the last three words Bob heard escape from Phoenix’s mouth before he was reaching between his legs to pull at the emergency yellow and black striped handle that sent him flying out of the cockpit. He’d been taught how to handle a situation like this, they all had. Every single naval aviator currently on active duty had been taught what to do when they needed to eject.

But when Bob's head hit the top of the cockpit? He didn’t care for procedures and protocol and what he should or shouldn’t have done in the moment, all he cared about was you and holding on to whatever consciousness he had left as he tumbled through the sky at a rapid pace. Reaching for his parachute in just the nic of time.

Knowing if he hit the ground where the land had shook and cracked and rose till it spiked the sky that it wouldn’t have given a shit. It wouldn’t have been all that forgiving and it certainly wouldn’t have mourned his untimely demise.

So Bob faught until he hit the ground with a not so graceful thud, he hit the ground hard—with an almighty groan as his ribs popped and his head throbbed inside his helmet.

“Ahhh!” He gasped as he clutched at his stomach, forgetting how to breathe as the darkness of tunnel vision claimed its next victim. Unconsciousness overcoming its latest casualty:

Bob Floyd.

***~***~***~***~***~***~***~

Bob had asked you once when you were wrapped up in his arms in the dead of the night, listening to the storm raging on outside if you knew anything at all about a Greek God called Chronos. When you had chuckled out a soft no as his lips trailed up your neck and his slightly calloused hands roamed your body like they knew every inch, Bob told you that he carried a sickle, that he used it to cut a hole, a tear in the cosmos between heaven and earth. Chronos did that to separate this world from the next, to separate the known from the unknown.

And while someone by the name of Pete Mitchell told you over the phone that your husband had been involved in a training accident….

Well—you felt as if you'd fallen straight into it.

You felt like you'd fallen into the cosmic existence between now and soon to come, plummeting into a realm where time didn’t exist and light didn’t reach. You tumbled into a parallel dimension where nothing made sense, nothing seemed tangible or real. You descended into a world where Bob Floyd wasn’t around.

“Your husband was involved in an accident during a training exercise this afternoon—“.

At the sound of Pete Maverick Mitchell’s voice explaining that there had been an accident on base during an exercise—you begun to crack, you started slipping further and further into the unknown because Bob had always said he’d never leave and if he did you’d feel him tugging on your earlobe to let you know he got there safe and sound.

There was no one tugging on your earlobe though, no soul that had passed on or ghostly figure watching over you. What there was though, was a radiating warmth between your legs. A wetness that shouldn't have been there.

Had your water just broken?

“Oh—oh god.” You gasped as you looked down, gripping the side of the kitchen island as you groaned out a prolonged, primal moan. You were in labour there was no doubt about it. “Ahh.”

“Mrs Floyd? Are you alright?” The voice on the other end of the line asked with a confused undertone as you watched the seconds tick past on the ongoing call.

“I uh—“ You tried to speak, tried to make sense of what you were hearing, what you were experiencing. Pain in every aspect both physically, emotionally and mentally. “I think my water just broke.”

“Oh—“ Maverick couldn’t suppress his shock nor could he disguise his sudden state of disbelief. “Oh okay, I’ll uh—I'll have an ambulance come by right away.” You replied with a sharp groan. Doubling over as you felt how hard your stomach had truly become. This was happening, everything was happening all at once and you had lost focus in the pain of both worrying about the state your husband was currently in and the fact your baby was on their way. “Mrs Floyd, someone will be there very soon, I’m gonna stay on the line with you until they arrive.”

“I need Bob—“ You’d begun to cry as you kneeled on the kitchen floor before you decided that sitting up against the cabinet with your legs outstretched felt a hell of a lot more comfortable. “I need my husband, I can't do this without him.” You felt warm tears streaming down your cheeks as your bottom lip quivered and another painful contraction rippled through your body. Every fibre of your being ignited in a fireball. “Ahhh—I won’t do this without my husband!”

On the other side of the phone call that had taken a rather drastic turn, Mav looked to Phoenix who was being wheeled into the awaiting ambulance on the tarmac. Bob was next, Pete didn’t have the heart to tell the Weapons Systems Officer that had just escaped death that his wife, who he hadn’t mentioned to a soul beside Phoenix, that his wife’s water had just broken.

“Phoenix, hey—“ Pete stopped the medics briefly, they looked at Pete like he was risking her life by wasting valuable time. But this was just as important. “What’s Bob's wife’s name?” Pete wanted to know so he could be a little more personal.

The truth was Natasha didn’t even know, she’d seen the picture of you in Bob's wallet that he’d shown her, but Bob had only ever called you by your nickname. Bob's beloved term of endearment.

Peach.

“He’s only ever called her Peach, I don’t even know her name.” Phoenix cried. She was still trying to process what had happened—she felt like the blame was all her own to bear. She’d damn near killed her back seater and she didn’t even know his wife’s real name or that you were pregnant. “I nearly killed him and I don’t even know his wife’s name—“

“Hey hey hey.” Mav tried to soothe the clearly shocked pilot. “It wasn’t your fault, it could’ve happened to anyone, Phoenix.” Mav smiled softly as he held the phone back to his ear, he was still yet to call Phoenix's emergency contact, her sister Lily. It wasn’t inherently Mavericks' job to call the emergency contacts listed in Bob and Phoenix’s files, but it was his duty, his responsibility.

He was going to as soon as he’d informed you, however, Pete wasn’t expecting this call to take the turn it had. “Peach, you there?”

There was no answer, Simply whimpers. When you’d doubled over in pain in the kitchen you’d left your phone on the island bench top. It was far too out of reach now as you sat trying to breathe through the latest contraction that bodied you.

“Peach—“ Mav started, but as he did so saw the medics wheeling Bob closer and closer to the ambulance waiting on the tarmac. He couldn’t say anything, not when Bob was still fighting to stay conscious. “Mrs Floyd, someone will be there as soon as they can, I promise.”

“Bbboooooobb—!” You cried out. “I can’t do this!” It was all too much for you to handle, the immense pressure, the anxiety, the fear of losing your husband. “I can’t fucking do this!” You never thought in your wildest dreams you’d have to do this alone. Bob always said he’d be right with you every single step of the way. And up until right now he had been.

“Someone’s coming Peach.” Maverick knew you couldn’t hear him, but he couldn’t bring himself to put the phone down. He looked at Bob being wheeled into the back of the ambulance on a stretcher, wondering if his decision to not say anything as of right now was a bad decision. He seemed to always be full of those.

“Someone’s coming—“

***~***~***~***~***~***~***~

By the time Bob was brought back to the North Island Base Hospital, he was very aware that someone would need to call his emergency contact about what had happened. Someone was going to need to call you, he thought it would be best if he was the one who called.

With a throbbing headache and a few cuts and gashes, Bob let the nurses and doctors tend to his aid without much of a fight. He knew he needed the care, knew it was for the best if he just let everyone do their jobs. He wasn't going anywhere anytime soon and if he put up a fight they would only keep him admitted for longer.

“You got a partner Robert? A wife or husband that we need to call?” Doctor Austin asked as he shined a light into Bob's eyes, watching carefully as he followed the light side to side.

“I have a wife–” Bob mumbled, his head hurt from when he’d hit the ground not so gracefully but it wasn't anything he couldn't handle as he sat up on the hospital bed with his legs hanging off the side. Phoenix was laying with an ice pack over her eyes on the other bed. “She’s um, she's pregnant, could go any day now.” Doctor Austin chuckled as he clicked his pen light off and placed it into his top pocket. Sending Bob an all knowing look.

“And you thought it was a good idea to fall outta the sky?” Bob's ribs hurt when he laughed softly, cupping at his side as he did so, laughing with the doctor who had cleared him and Natasha of any serious injury. “My good man, I can't say that's a good mix.” But there were still observations that needed to be made and a few more tests just to be sure. He wasn't out of the woods.

“Yeah I think you might be right doc—“ Bob smiled softly. “But can I be the one to call her? She’ll probably take the news a little better if she heard it from me.”

“I’ll see what I can do Lieutenant.” Doctor Austin nodded as he picked up his charts and headed out of the room, leaving Phoenix and Bob in the heavy silence of the aftermath of their near death experience.

“What’s her name?” Phoenix mumbled from behind the ice pack she kept over her eyes.

“Y/n—“ Bob replied softly as he played with the wedding band that was strung through his dog tags. “We’ve been together since high school.”

“Why do you call her Peach?”

“Because she’s as sweet as the peaches from the orchard my grandma used to own.” Bob couldn’t stop himself from bashfully blushing, a hume all consuming crept across the apples of his cheeks whenever he spoke about you. “We’re about to have a baby, the detachment was meant to be my last before I could access my paternity leave entitlements.”

“Rough last assignment—“ Phoenix chuckled as she shook her head in disbelief. Bob agreed silently, it was a rough last assignment. “You don’t talk about her an awful lot do you?”

“I would—“ Bob pressed his lips together. “Just no one really asked.” It was then that Phoenix realised that she didn’t know an awful lot about the man who had gone down with her. The man who sat behind her and had her back in the sky. Her WSO. “And I guess we’re not here for all that long anyway so I just kept her to myself, she’s a nice reminder that even after the rough days we’ve been having I get to go home, safe and in one piece to the woman I love.”

“Do you guys know what your having?” Phoenix didn't mean to pry, but she felt an overwhelming pressure to get to know the person she had been flying with since being requested for this detachment. Bob shook his head in response.

“Nah, we wanted to keep it a surprise.” Just as Bob was finishing his sentences Doctor Austin returned, his face looked all kinds of pale and worry was written in the deep lines across his forehead.

“Lieutenant Floyd it looks as if your wife was just admitted into the maternity ward—“ Bob's heart stopped beating inside his chest as he listened to Doctor Austin. “It appears that she was contacted earlier about your accident and the shock sent her into labour—“

“I uh—I need to see her.” Bob mumbled as he slid off the exam bed and nearly fell to the floor. His knees were so weak from the shock and adrenaline from the accident and now the realisation that he was about to be a first time dad. “I need to see my wife, where is she?”

“Lieutenant, I know this must be a stressful situation for you but I really advise against leaving until we’ve finished with your own test. We still need to get you in for—“

“I won’t miss the birth of my baby.” Bob shook his head in defiance. “No, I won’t leave her to do that alone, she needs me—I know she does because I know how scared she is about doing this alone.”

“Robert—“

“No no you have to listen to me. I can't let her do this alone because I’ve heard her cry about it in the middle of the night.” Phoenix's heart shattered into a million pieces as she watched Bob plead with the doctor and the nurses that had come in to try and subdue him. “She’s scared I won’t come back one day and today was almost that day and now she’s giving birth to our baby alone after I promised I’d be here for her—“

“We can’t let you go, it would be against all my medical advice.” Doctor Austin tried to explain. “I understand the difficulty of the situation Mr Floyd but your health and wellbeing is our number one priority.”

“But you have to let me!! That’s my wife! She needs me! Please—“ You needed your husband, things weren’t travelling all that well in the delivery room. You weren’t ready to have this baby—not if Bob wasn’t there with you. Not if Bob had left you behind, he was too young to die. He couldn’t leave you here by yourself to raise a baby, his baby, on your own. He promised he wouldn’t.

“Mrs Floyd, you are going to have this baby.”

“Aahhhhhh! I’m not doing this without my husband!” You groaned out. You were covered in sweat and crying your heart out as one of the labour and delivery nurses held your hand and placed a cool washcloth to your forehead. “I won’t have this baby without him, do you understand me!”

“Someone needs to contact her husband—“ Everyone from the King of England to the Hounds of Hell could hear you screaming. It had been a rather quiet day for the L&D department. Until the ambulance had brought you in.

“We can’t reach him, but I’ll try again.” One of the intern labour and delivery nurses replied as she rushed out of the room, she sprinted towards the nurses station in a hurry. So fast she almost went straight past it, she came to a halt with a flustered sigh.“I need you to try contacting Mr Floyd again, his wife won’t cooperate—she’s refusing to give birth to this baby without him.”

“She knows how having a baby works doesn’t she?” One of the older nurses sitting at the desk rolled her eyes. “That baby, no matter the circumstances, isn’t going to wait for anyone.”

“I’ll let the L&D ward know you’re here as a patient but that’s the best I can do at this stage Lieutenant, I can’t in good conscience let you leave this ward without having run through all the proper medical procedures to make sure you’re fit to return to work.” Doctor Austin wasn’t trying to be the bay guy, if anything he wanted nothing more than to send Bob on his way—but he couldn’t, he wouldn’t be able to sleep at night knowing he didn’t do his job to the best of his ability. “My primary priority is you and Miss Trance here.”

“You don’t understand!” Bob ran his hands through his hair as his bottom lip quivered. He was holding back tears as he looked up to the ceiling—begging whatever God up there that saved him this morning to work just a little more magic. “She won’t have this baby without me, that was the deal—I needed to be there and now that I’m not—“

“She can’t not have the baby Robert.” Doctor Austin sighed, that was the moment Bob knew he needed out. He needed to get to you, he needed to be there by your side and whisper how beautiful and strong and amazing you are for being a whole person into this world. Because if there was one thing you were, it was strong willed, and you weren't going to have this baby without him. That was a promise. “I’ll go talk with L&D and I’ll be right back.”

“Tell my wife I’m here!” Bob shouted as Doctor Austin left the room, Bob felt like he couldn’t breathe. There was a pressure mounting inside his chest, like an elephant was perched upon his chest. “I’m—I’m here.” He broke. Tears streamed down his grazed cheeks as Phoenix hobbled over. She’d done a little damage to herself but nothing a little rest and recovery couldn’t fix.

They were lucky—oh so lucky.

“She's gonna be okay.” Natasha tried her best to comfort the Weapons System Officer she hardly knew, but Bob was long gone. He’d fallen deep into that hole, the one that the Greek God Chronos had created to separate this life from the next one. He was falling through a helpless paradox of anxiety and fear. You were about to give birth and he was going to miss it. As he crouched down as a whale of pain escaped his parted lips, Bob wished for nothing more than to reverse time.

Because if he could just simply reserve time then he wouldn’t have gone into work this morning. And none of this would be happening.

***~***~***~****~***~****~****~***

“Desmond, she’s not doing well, at all.” Lily, one of your delivery nurses, pleaded with Bob's doctor to just let him come to your aid. “She thinks he’s dead, something about an accident he was in this morning.”

“F-18 ejection, he hit the ground pretty hard.” Doctors Austin looked in at you on the bed, in the middle of active labour, fighting every urge you had to push. You weren’t having this baby, not without Bob, the love of your life, your best friend, your husband. “He’s fine, but he’s in for observation overnight and I’m still waiting for his result to come back from his MRI.”

“If she doesn’t see her husband soon she’s going to need an emergency c-section and I for one am not about to place a panicked mother to be under the knife unless it’s critical.” Lily was your voice of reason. You couldn’t plead with Doctor Austin to let your husband go yourself so she did it for you. “If your patient can walk, hold his wife’s hand while she delivers their child and can sign a waiver saying he waved all medical advice then send him down here before she loses this baby.”

“You L&D ladies think you know everything—“

“Just bring me her damn husband before it’s too late.”

***~***~***~***~***~***~***~**

Bob felt like he’d been condemned to some eternal hell, time froze as the walls of the hospital room he sat in with Phoenix grew closer and closer. He felt claustrophobic for the first time in a long time.

“How did the two of you meet?” Phoenix tried to keep Bob's mind from going to places too dark to fathom. He needed a distraction from the fact he was here with her and you were delivering his child. All alone.

“I was never good at history, she was my partner for this assessment we had in ancient history class once, everyone was doing their research on Pompeii but not Peach.” Bob chuckled to himself at the memory. “No she wanted to do Herculaneum and it turned out to be the only project I ever got an A on for that class.” You were just it for Bob. There was something special about your aura. Your ability to draw him close like a moth entranced by a flame. You took his breath away every time you told him you loved him.

Your love sent Bob's heart clear out of this world.

“We kinda just never left each other's side since then.” Bob explained as he sat against the wall on the floor with his elbows on his knees. “She’s always been so supportive of what I do even though I know it scares her more than anything to see me walk out that door every morning and she worries endlessly whenever I’m deployed.”

“Becoming she loves you.” Phoenix wished she knew a love like Bobs, but her time hadn’t come yet. Bob nodded along as he twirled his wedding band around his finger as it hung from his dog tags.

“Because she loves me.”

“Floyd—“ Doctor Austin made his presence known as he chucked Bob a blue hospital gown and cap. “Put those on, sign this form that says you're going against my professional medical advice and follow me, you’re needed in labour and delivery.”

***~***~***~***~***~***~

“Push! Y/n dear you need to push—!” Lily tried to persuade you to push when your next contraction hit but you were too far gone. You weren’t ready to be a mother, not without Bob there to be a father.

“No! No, I'm not having this baby!” It was the hardest thing to hear as Bob came racing down the hall, his entire body ached from bruises, his head felt heavy on his shoulders from his concussion. But he was okay, he was alive. “I’m not! I won’t! I can’t do this without him!” You cried out in pain as you fought the urge to push, you swore your teeth were about to crush under the force of you clenching. A scream so heartbreaking and primal ripped through you as your body began to betray you. You were fighting nature's course and it wasn’t going well.

“She needs to push—she’s losing too much blood.” One of the nurses stated as a matter of factly just as Bob made it to the door. He froze at the sight of you, how could you look so beautiful in so much pain? He thought he was going to pass out as he took steady, slow steps into the room.

“I’m here—“ Bob cooed as he came up to your beside. “I’m here Peach I’m here.”

“Bob?” You turned in a delirious state to where your husband's voice had come from. “No no I thought you—“

“I’m okay.” He smiled as he bent over to kiss your forehead and splay his hand on top of your head to push your hair away from your face. “I’m here, I told you I’d be here didn’t I?”

“I thought you died, I thought you were in an accident?” You could barely focus, you felt so light headed that the world felt like it was spinning. “I thought—“

“Hey, hey you need to push alright? You can push now baby because I’m here and I’m with you and I’m fine.” Bob reassured you as you sobbed and nodded as he kissed your lips softly and held your hand. “You’re so strong, you’re so brave, and I love you so much, please push mama.”

“This baby is coming whether you're ready or not Mrs Floyd so I’m gonna need you to focus so we can get this baby out.” Lily rounded the bed as she positioned herself between your legs. Bob felt you tighten your grip around his head and everything stopped. Time stood still, your screams were all but drowned out by the excitement and fear in Bob's heart.

“Yes, Y/n good job. I can see bubs head you’re doing so well! Oh your next contraction I need you to push until I tell you to stop.” Lily smiled as you let your head fall back against the bed.

“You’ve been telling me to push and now you don’t want me to push!?” You hissed. Bob couldn’t help but to chuckle. He was so amazed by your strength.

“Yep, that’s exactly what I’m telling you.” Lily chuckled. She knew you were close, barreling towards another contraction. She could see it. “Alright this is the one mama, big push for me and bubs will be here in no time.”

“Bob! It hurts! Make it stop!” You cried out, Bob wished he could take all your pain and experience it himself. He never wanted to see you in such a state, but your baby was coming, the baby you’d made together. You’d created together late one night or in the early hours of the morning he wasn’t too sure. But what he was sure of was that you could do this. “It hurts!!”

“Push Mrs Floyd!” Lily shouted.

“Come on peach push! push!” Bob willed you on as you did. You shouted and cried and squeezed your husband’s hand so hard he thought you were about to break his damn hand. But this was it. Your baby was coming.

“Okay okay the heads out stop!” Lily guided you as you let your head fall back against the bed in pure exhaustion. You were dehydrated, covered in sweat and ready to give up. “So I lied before, you’re gonna give me one smaller push to help bubs out Y/n and that it’s—you're done.”

“I can’t.”

“No peach you can.” Bob cooed. “You can because you’ve come this far.”

“I’m not even sure if you're here or not.” You sobbed as you reached out to caress Bob's cheek. “I’m not even sure if you're here with me or if I’m seeing things.”

“I’m here, I’m real.” Bob whispered in your ear. “And we’re having our baby Peach, just one more little push and it’s gonna be you and me and our little one against the world.” You nodded softly and you shut your eyes and groaned. “You can do it.”

“Alright let’s have this baby! One more small push!” Lily announced as another contraction tour through your exhausted body.

“Ahhhhhh!!” You shouted and Bob swore you bust his eardrum, but it was a small sacrifice as the cries of the world’s newest human echoed off the walls.

“Congratulations Mr and Mrs Floyd you have a little baby girl.” Lily handed you your daughter the second she was born. Placing her on your chest within seconds of her arrival.

“Oh Peach, she's so beautiful.” Bob cried as tears streamed down his cheeks. He swore he’d never be able to love someone more than he loved you. But as you held your newborn daughter on your chest he kinda thought he’d been wrong. He could love someone just as much as he loved you. Your daughter.

“She's perfect, hi b-baby.” Your voice was all but a whisper as your head lulled to the side. You felt dizzy, lightheaded as your daughters cried softened. “I love you.”

“Y/n? Sweetheart are you alright?” You didn’t reply but you looked up at your husband with a dazed expression, a tunnel had begun to form, edges of a dark black hole crept its way into your mind.

Chronos hole—the one between this world and the next.

“Peach?” Alarms rang out as Lily removed your crying newborn just minutes earth side from your chest as your eyes rolled into the back of your head. “No no no no what’s wrong what’s happening to her?” Bob asked as he tapped your cheek softly. “Hey, Peach, no stay with me, stay with me.”

“Her blood pressure is dropping, she’s haemorrhaging.” Lily explained as she and a bunch of other nurses worked around you. “We need to get her into surgery, Mr Floyd.”

“Sir, step back—“ An older nurse asked as she placed a hand on Bob's shoulder. He did as he watched Lily take a sample of your blood.

“I’ll head directly to the lab to drop off the sample.”

“Just make sure her surgeon has o-negative on the ready.” The only nurse replied as Bob stood there, watching as they wheeled you out on the same bed you'd just given birth in. He didn't even get a chance to say goodbye, he didn't get a chance to tell you how much he loved you.

“Uh, do I go with her or?” Bob didn’t know what to do, his whole world had been turned upside down and on its head already today, and again it had just flipped once more. There was one nurse left, he didn’t know her name, but she smiled politely at him.

“No, you should stay here with your daughter, she needs her daddy now.”

***~***~***~***~***~***~***~

And through every grievance, every war, the land and the sky didn't give two shits about any of it. Bob Floyd knew that as he sat with his newborn daughter in the maternity room of the Miramar Base Hospital designed by man, for man to help other men with westernised medical procedures and treatments…

That it wouldn't give two shits about you either.

“Hey..” A gruff voice came from the doorway, it took Bob all his light and all his remaining energy to look up from his daughter. The light and life of you. “I uh, I just thought I’d come check in on you and Phoenix.” Mav crossed his arms over his chest as he moved into the room. “How’s your wife doing?”

“I don’t know.” Bob explained as he rocked his little girl, skin to skin was important so he’d stripped off what he could. “She’s still in surgery.” Pete could see the worry written in the lines of Bob's face. But the little girl who cried against his shoulder had him mesmerised. “Sorry darlin, I got you, daddy’s here.”

“She’s a little beauty isn’t she?” Mav sat down beside the WSO who’d had a longer day then most. “You get a chance to name her yet? Before—?” Mav didn’t have to say before you went into shock. Your body had been through a lot and the nurses believed if you hadn’t held on so long, held back against what your body was telling you it needed to do then there was a possibility that it could have been a rather smooth delivery. Bob took that personally, the only reason you were holding back was because he wasn't here for you when you needed him the most.

“No, but we’ll name her after, for now she’s baby Peach.”

“Your wife’s nickname.” Mav replied softly as he looked up. He knew then and there what was about to happen.

Bob knew there was a Doctor standing in the doorway. He didn’t dare look up. He knew if he looked up he’d be told the worst news of his life.

Bob remembered that had asked you once when you were wrapped up in his arms in the dead of the night, listening to the storm raging on outside if you knew anything at all about a Greek God called Chronos. He remembered that you had chuckled out a soft no as he trailed his lips up your neck. Bob told you that he carried a sickle, that he used it to cut a hole, a tear in the cosmos between heaven and earth. Chronos did that to separate this world from the next, to separate the known from the unknown.

And while a Doctor by the name of Henry Nardella told him that you didn’t make it through the surgery, that you'd left him and your daughter behind, in a world where nothing made sense without you in it.

Well—Robert Floyd felt as if he’d fallen straight into it.

“No, please don't leave me here.” Bob felt like he’d fallen into the cosmic existence between now and soon to come, plummeting into a realm where time didn’t exist and light didn’t reach. He felt like he had tumbled into a parallel dimension where nothing made sense, nothing seemed tangible or real. He’d descended into a world where you weren't around. “No Peach, no.”

But at the touch of his earlobe, a slight pressure formed at the lobe. So warm and comforting. Bob knew as your baby girl settled in against his chest at the lub dub of his heart beating for you–he knew you were safe on the other side.

Because you had tugged on his earlobe, just like you promised you would.

***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~

#bob floyd #bob floyd imagine #bob top gun #bob floyd fic #bob x reader #bob floyd x reader #robert floyd x reader #robert 'bob' floyd #robert bob floyd x reader #bob floyd x y/n #bob floyd angst

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the-uninformed-zennial · 12 days

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So, uh, Fable ended.

And now I’m gonna be sappy on main.

I started watching Fable about half a year before I started being active in the fandom, around the time I started falling in love with my partner @hoardingpuffin . Watching Rae and Caspian’s relationship develop was actually part of what helped me realize that the things I was feeling for them were romantic and not just platonic. Surprisingly enough, that’s just the beginning of the profound effect Fable had on me.

I had never really interacted with fandom spaces before Fable. But when I caught up with lore sometime in November 2022, I decided to join the discord. It was a crazy place. Being someone who’d never really been in a server before I was completely overwhelmed and nervous, so I didn’t interact much for the first month or so.

Then I discovered that, despite the incredible love for the project, no one had made a “which character are you?” Quiz yet, so, I decided to fuck it and make one myself. The response I got to that was unlike any I had seen before. I was getting pinged weeks afterwards with people’s results and it made me really happy to see how much my work was appreciated by everyone in the community. It got me thinking about other ways I might be able to give back.

Then, as you all know, the stream “Call” and it’s partner “Response” came out on Ghosty and HeyHay’s channels. I’d been feeling so similarly to the two characters, dealing with my long distance relationship with Puffin. So, I took those feelings and the words Heyhay and Ghosty had used to convey them for their characters and put them into a song.

And then something insane happened.

Everyone liked it. Like, everyone liked it. This crappy recording I made at 2 AM suddenly got hundreds and then thousands of views when I put it on SoundCloud and YouTube. It was insane. I had written some songs before, but they’d always been ridiculed, so having a large group of people like the fable community enjoy something that I wrote was absolutely insane to me, and it encouraged me to make more.

I found myself being inspired by the characters in fable, connecting with different storylines or sentences said on streams. I found myself writing songs, one after another after another. At one point I was writing a song a week for a period of about three months. I had never experienced this amount of raw creativity before, but every time I put a new song out, I only got encouraged to make more.

And then people started to ask me when I was going to put them on Spotify. And that was another moment that everything changed. I realized if I was gonna put these out there in such an official way I didn’t want it to just be a bunch of crappy recorded singles. So I needed to make an album.

That was something I had never considered doing before. I knew nothing about music editing or sound mixing. Up until that point all of my songs had been made on GarageBand at 2 AM with very little editing or mixing going into them. So, I started saving for a real music editing program and within a few months I got there.

Then came the actual making of the album. I took a few months off in the summer and just dove headfirst into it. Every spare moment I wasn’t modding for the Sherbathon, or the discord, or streaming my own lore, was spent working on those songs. And while looking back now I wish I knew what I know now about music editing, I’m so glad I did what I did. Putting that album out, seeing how you all responded to it… it made me realize that this is something I love, something that I don’t have to wait for someone else’s permission or teaching to do.

This fandom is the reason I’m a musical artist and that is something I don’t think I will ever be able to express the importance of enough.

As much as I could talk about the unending support and encouragement I received from the wonderful cast members throughout my experience making the album, or how being given the role of mod on the fandom discord taught me so much about how to be a creator in my own right, or even the amazing experience I had being able to make songs for the lore. When it comes right down to it, it was the community, cast and all, that impacted my life in the profound way it has been. So thank you, each and every one of you, whether you are a cast member, a fan, a fellow mod, or even just someone who streamed a song you didn’t have any context for. Thank you for changing my life, for giving me the encouragement to pursue my dreams.

Thank you Fable SMP cast, crew, and community 💕

#Fuck this hit so much harder than I thought it was going to #I hope you guys liked the finale though #fable smp #fablesmp #mcytblr

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dreadfutures · 1 month

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impressions from the hades ii technical playtest

absolutely chock full of spoilers but also theories

Amazing gameplay, feels just as good as Hades 1 with improvements and creative changes. So many different builds/play styles will be possible. in the dev stream they talked about melee close quarters vs sorcery ranged, but I find myself doing HEAVY spellcasting while also stacking in heavy melee boons on the knives, and mixing and matching.

The boons have a few familiar perks but so many of them are new and creative, even for gods we know from the first game. All of them feel really good.

The SOUND EFFECTS are amazing. The sounds of your weapons change based on the boon equipped to each attack. the sounds of the arena change depending on the god at the end (if any). Nothing and I mean nothing makes the dopamine go off more than the sound of Hephaestus' boon blasts when I do my fan of knives and they all explode. PING PING PING.

I find myself doing "resource runs" and "story runs." they do overlap. It's tough to only have one harvesting item equipped at a time and I spent so much time looking for silver and looking that my eye has started slipping over the lone spirits who gives you psyche, even when Selene leads me to them lol. I do like that they have her guiding light, but it is subtle. I also like the way you can pin certain items when you're in a run so you can remember what you needed for a recipe.

Unfortunately I did so many harvest runs that I actually got all the recipes before I had a chance to USE forget me not on a run so.... woops on that fated list lol.

We are maybe going to romance Moros or Nemesis (probably both are options?) but maybe not both at the same time? since they're siblings technically (technically) (I wouldn't mind though). I love all these children of nyx and want to protect them and smooch them all.

EXCEPT. Mel is a Silver Sister, with Artemis and Selene. Does that mean she's gotta be a virginal girl squad? lol

I love sister Artemis. I love that she throws snacks!!!!! which is even more endearing bc it's fried and a chocolate bar and soda. I wonder if sometimes I hear a note of disapproval from her and I wonder where her plot will go later. Selene it's said may not be able to reach us in Tartarus, but Artemis might.

Speaking of found family.

I fucking adore Odysseus. I love Od. So. Much. Like I loved Achilles but Od is such a good girl dad for Mel, and his pep talks are the best and so sensitive ;_; what a guy I love him.

I think? that Hecate's familiars must be placeholders, since they're just little statues that vibrate when you give them treats. I can't wait to see where they go in the full game.

It's an interesting take on Hestia, that she hates everybody. It makes me wonder if we'll see Hera or not, since I kind of expect that behavior from Hera.

Hephaestus and Demeter and Aphrodite remain my favorite boon givers.

As far as I can tell there is no fishing rod in the playtest but there will be in the full game and I'm excited.

Arachne's self esteem hurts me 😫 I love you little bug!!!! I wonder if we'll find her shop in Olympus or in Tartarus -- and I worry about her. At least Athena is too busy to bother her! I hope! I love Mel's different outfits.

The amount of pets that Mel gets to have is delightful. I love her frog so much.

Hecate is fascinating. She is SUCH a mother, she is SO compassionate to Mel and trying to build her up! She is wry and dry but never cruel or negative. I love her sm. Poor Mel has some low self esteem and understandable doubts and is putting so much pressure on herself. And I really wonder about Hecate's relationship with Persephone and the house of Hades and with nyx. Nemesis says something that makes me wonder if Hecate is innocent. Either way I don't think she'll really be a villain. My heart would break if so. Mel would break.

Mel is so sweet and pure. ;_; and she says "death to chronos" so coldly. When she says "Hence I go" I just hear her as a little baby playing hide and seek with Hecate and it gives me so many feelings.

I want to know about Mel's arm!

I can't wait to see the other regions just from the Crossroads, since there's currently two doors we can't enter.

Also what are we going to DO with the fish?

Very exciting stuff.

#hades 2 spoilers #hades 2

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saysike-skedoodles · 1 month

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Smallishbeans

OH WOW DID I JUST POST FANART????? YES I DID. I'm after finding myself becoming VERY interested in Hermitcraft, mainly watching Joel/Smallishbeans' POV of the newest season :] Where do I even start with Joel??? He's funny, I mean REALLY funny (imo), I dunno what it is but everytime he uploads a new vid I'm always so excited to see it. Seriously he may be one of my favourite youtubers at the moment.

Soooooo I drew his MC skin! I also saw many people drawing their own designs/takes on the hermits and figured I do the same myself! It's not much, but I did things like adding antennas (kinda referencing the fact his mc skin was Shrek) and just in general adding green accented accessories. I'm not that confident when it comes to drawing humans, mainky cuz my style isn't built for it, but I REALLY enjoyed this whole process and I think this piece has made me feel a little bit more happy with how I draw people :]. I definitely wanna get to drawing Grian and Scar, I've been watching their POVs too and I just love their skins so I gotta draw them. ESPECIALLY SCAR'S, I love his hat for some reason, I dunno why but the hat is so cool. I've just been ping-ponging between Hermitcraft and Alton Towers for the past few weeks which is FUN. I do wanna add more variety to this account as it is soooooo drawing some hermits seems like a good start :] Also this is completely random but still on topic sort of- buuut do keep in mind if I go on about funny scenarios with the hermits, I'm mainly going on about the characters they portray in the series and not the real people behind them! I feel I should clarify this cuz sometimes there's a bit of an awkward thing to distinguish when it comes to stuff like this.

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I have nothing else to say but listen to I Monster and Andrew WK. Please I can't find any other fans of their work and I wanna gush on about their stuff to people lkajshsdfjhuijfehusij-

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Deviantart

Tumblr

Art Tumblr

Youtube

TMM Official Tumblr

Newgrounds

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[all content I post is automatically 13+ if not stated in the title or the content itself]

#art #digital art #hermitcraft #hermitcraft s10 #hermitcraft 10 #hermitcraft smallishbeans #smallishbeans #joel smallishbeans

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blainesebastian · 1 year

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damage control (mas universe)

words: 2,284 ship: austin butler x reader summary: ( @stylespresleyhearted requested) “Reader’s iCloud gets hacked and she had some pictures in lingerie she had sent to Austin that get leaked” notes: this is part of the ‘mutually assured satisfaction’ universe, my PR!relationship series. You could probably read this alone if you wanted. warnings: none tag list: @killerqueenfan, @karamelcoveredolicity, @elizabethrosecresswell, @gigisworldsstuff, @stylespresleyhearted, @rairaielv

In theory, you know there’s nothing to be ashamed of. You’re a strong, successful woman in your industry and you’ve worked hard for that. There have been moments of sacrifice that you’ve never admitted or spoken outloud to anyone, but that’s what one does for their craft sometimes? Their passion. Not even to mention that you’re unconsciously comparing yourself to men in your shoes, how much more recognition they might get, how much more money. It’s not something you harp on because sometimes society just is what it is…you know how lucky you are and how far you’ve come, you’re not about to complain. But deep down you wonder, if this would have happened to a man somehow, what would the reactions be? There’s a societal stereotype that digs right under your skin.

And yet that doesn’t make it hurt any less when it happens.

In the back of your mind, there are a million thoughts swirling through in harsh circles, like a washing machine cycle that just won’t end. It’s one thing to take pictures of yourself for your boyfriend but why did you keep them? It would have been easy just to delete them afterwards, to make sure. And then another thought rebounds back with a why? What’s the big deal? So what if you’ve taken these pictures? You shouldn’t be embarrassed that you posed yourself in a bit of lingerie and sent them to your long-term boyfriend when he was away filming. You both missed one another, the phone sex and Facetime calls and long nights of shared intimacy of just hearing eachother’s voices was just barely enough to cover the ache. Why not add a few pictures to make things interesting? You loved taking them and Austin certainly loved receiving them. You haven’t done anything wrong, you haven’t hurt anyone.

There’s a rational part of your brain, however, that knew this was going to be a bad idea, or maybe hindsight is always that clear.

It’s just a ping-pong set of emotions, really, because when it happens you’re constantly floating between two families of thought. When someone hacks into your iCloud account and finds those pictures, they’re instantly circulated in a few ways. Sold to paps, posted online. Your agent and publicist do their best to cover damage control and while you’re numb at first to this even happening? your first thought ends up being, well at least I’m not completely naked.

And then that’s how it starts, the ping-pong table of feelings.

One the one side, there’s an aloof sense of justification in which you argue with yourself and anyone else that you’ve got no reason to feel shame about your body. It’s not your fault that the female form is automatically sexualized in society and that yeah, you’re wearing lingerie? But so what? It’s no more revealing than a bathing suit and you’re not about to feel guilty for sending them to your boyfriend. It’s not like you’re the only couple on earth to exchange pictures (yeah, Austin has sent his fair share back to you…luckily you had enough common sense not to keep those). On the other one side, you’re pissed off that this has happened and ashamed and embarrassed that a bunch of strangers are seeing you like this, judging you, seeing intimacies that were only made for Austin.

It comes in waves as you handle damage control and unfortunately today, you’re in the latter. The humiliation is just weighing heavily onto you today, like a weighted blanket, pulling your shoulders down. You feel like you might sink right through the floor of your loft…and that’s how Austin finds you when he comes home, crying in the kitchen and worse, trying to hide it from him.

You feel foolish attempting to pretend you’re fine anyways because at this point Austin knows you like the back of his hand, even if he wasn’t caught up on everything that’s been happening. You attempt to walk out of the room but he gently catches your elbow and at one simple touch you just crumble, tears rolling down your cheeks even though you try to wipe them away.

“Shh,” He whispers, drawing you into his chest. He wraps his arms around you tightly, tucking you underneath his chin as emotions slam into you like constant waves. Despite how terrible all of this is and your struggle to come to grips with a lot of it, the only good thing is definitely your boyfriend.

He reminds you how supportive and wonderful he is, not once allowing you to feed into the worst thoughts you’ve had about yourself saying that you somehow deserve the chaos that’s been happening. While friends and family have been encouraging and great, Austin speaks to a part of you that seemingly only he can reach. He’s the only reason you’re getting through this, rocky days or not.

You both eventually end up on the couch, Austin tugging you down until you’re lying on his chest, the lower half of your body between his legs. It’s one of the easiest comforts, closing your eyes as you rest your head on his shoulder, nose and lips pressed to soft skin of his neck. The faint scent of his cologne brings a sense of calm and you feel like you’re finally able to breathe, to settle down once you’re against him.

He brings one of his hands up and slides it along your back, pausing to rub circles into your spine. Neither of you need to say anything for a long while, just enjoying one another’s company and decompressing.

“I hate that every time I feel like I’m over this,” You sniffle, breaking the silence, “Another emotion pops up that’s capable of taking my legs out.”

Austin shakes his head gently, letting out a soft sigh that’s mostly through his nose, “You don’t have to justify any emotions that you’re feelin’ about this.”

“I think that’s part of the problem,” You let out a soft laugh, running your fingers underneath your one eye, removing a tear track that’s no longer there. “I have no idea how to feel.” There are so many ranges of reactions that it’s constantly knocking you back and forth—angry and guilty and humiliated and upset and so many synonyms for all of those, all a cycle, over and over again.

And then even worse, it’s not just you involved in this whole thing but other people are waiting for your reaction to this. Paps, social media, people you’ve worked with, fans…and not that you owe anyone an explanation, either, but you also feel like it’s not going to go away until you say something.

“You don’t owe anyone anythin’.” Austin reads your mind and you smile just a little because even though that might be obvious, it’s nice to hear it.

Shifting a little on his chest, you tilt your head up to look at him, pressing a kiss to his jawline. “I just don’t get what the big damn deal is, people do shit like this all the time. Don’t even get me started on how there’s underwear and bathing suit models? A ton of celebrities go down that track.” You get the sense that this is because it was something more intimate, more forbidden, the fact that these were for Austin’s eyes only. But still.

Austin brushes your hair aside. “That’s what you should do,” He comments, more offhanded than anything else, “Give them somethin’ to look at if they’re insisting.”

And you just kinda blink because…wait, “I…I could do that.”

A soft laugh rumbles in your boyfriend’s chest until he looks down at you and realizes you’re serious. He adjusts the pillow behind him, propping himself up a little more so he can see you properly. He raises his eyebrows, his mouth opening for a moment but he doesn’t speak quite yet. He waits, considering words before he says them.

Not because he’s not supportive but, reiterating, “You don’t have anythin’ to prove.”

“I know, it wouldn’t be for anyone other than me.” And you mean that—it’s not like some big idea to somehow prove that you’ve got nothing to be ashamed of or that you’re giving in to sharing more of yourself because you feel like you have to.

It’s not about that. It’s about owning up to these pictures and…not feeling guilty. You’re a beautiful, strong woman who’s in love with her boyfriend and who isn’t going to be mortified into feeling remorseful for sending or accidently saving half naked pictures.

“Yeah, those pics were only meant for you…but I’m not going to let anyone make me feel bad for sending them.” And this is decided. You’re…not quite sure what this is going to translate into, exactly, but the point is? You’re going to figure it out. Your agent, Christina, has been texting you nonstop since it’s happened anyways—trying to figure out a plan of attack.

Well, you’ve got one.

Austin smiles down at you, curling your hair around your ear. He leans down and presses a small kiss to bridge of your nose, can see how proud he is about you coming to this decision in the blues of his eyes.

And really, that’s all you need to keep moving forward.

As suspected, Christina doesn't second-guess any of your ideas—she just gets to work. She wants to be able to help in any way that she can, and honestly that means a lot to you. Especially with Austin's support, you feel like you can do this. There's that little voice in the back of your head, of course, feeding insecurities, lying about how this will only make it worse and more humiliating for you. But you eventually swallow that down, because confidence is key, it's the whole point and narrative that Christina tells the fashion photographer that has them agreeing to do the spread and small info session afterwards. It's a very small message of empowerment, of owning those frustrating feelings and using them for something good. It's selfish, for sure, but you're hoping other women get something out of this—there's nothing about the female body to be embarrassed about.

You watch your eyes in the mirror as a makeup artist puts just a bit of blush high on your cheekbones—there's an iridescence to it that matches the lingerie you're wearing. Kinda reminds you of a mermaid, really, the scales part. It's a lavender lace teddy, sheer in some places, just enough to hint over to imagination—much like the in the photos you sent Austin.

Your stomach is swirling in anticipation. The photos come second, just a few different shots, again very closely related to the poses you sent Austin (all of this is on purpose) but first a meet n’ greet with the photographer to answer some questions. They go fast and then flashes of bright light settling in the back of your eyes and…once it’s all over, you kinda feel enthralled and completely anxious all at the same time. Nervous energy bubbling along your nerve endings as you see Austin lingering in the background.

You’re not sure what time he’s arrived but he’s smiling at you, moving into frame once the camera stops going off. He lovingly cups both sides of your face, leaning down to gently press a kiss against your lips. There’s the sound of a camera shutter, you’re almost sure, but you don’t care as your hands rest on his waist.

He doesn’t say anything but you realize he doesn’t have to? He’s looking down at you with a mixture of emotions that tell you everything. How beautiful he thinks you are, how proud he is, and everything in-between.

There’s a full body shot from the photoshoot that blows up—and it just so happens to be the candid photo that the photographer took of you and Austin at the end. It’s endearing and soft and while all the other photos are knockouts, it’s definitely your favorite because it conveys the title that goes along with the thread: ‘no place for shame’. Not that this was one hundred percent your end goal either, but admittedly it does feel good that fans have been reposting and tagging you in positive posts.

Austin has been with you every step of the way, has supported you with the intimacies of your relationship accidently ending up out in the open since it happened. You couldn’t ask for a better boyfriend to go through this with.

You’re just glad that it finally feels like it’s on the upend of blowing over. So what better time than to feel good and celebrate?

You linger against the doorframe of the living room, watching as Austin reads over a script for tomorrow. A soft smile tugs the corners of your mouth, “Guess what?”

“Hmm?” He asks but doesn’t look up.

“I got to keep the lace teddy from the photoshoot.”

That gets Austin’s attention, he lifts his head in soft amusement, his eyes trailing over your form as you stand there wearing it. You smirk a little, playing with the thin lavender strings that tie together the bust. The soft mesh rests right along the tops of your thighs…and you’ve forgone underwear.

“You wouldn’t want to…take it off me, would you?” You ask, raising your eyebrows.

Austin slowly puts the script down, standing from the couch. He hums lightly, chewing on the inside of his cheek as he walks towards you. Before you can say anything else, he leans down to kiss you, playfully lifting you up into his arms to walk you towards the bedroom.

“I think you know the answer to that.”

#austin butler #austin butler x reader #austin butler imagine #austin butler fic #mccall writes things #elvis 2022 #mas

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amongthe141 · 6 months

Text

The Gifts that keep on giving...Part 1

Summary: Head cannons for if reader was stuck with some Task Force 141 and KorTac men (With some surprises) for Christmas, what would be the best surprise gift to give them?...UGLY SWEATER EDITION

Challenge of: @glitterypirateduck CODHOLIDAY2023 (Yes I'm early but I have a lot of stuff I'm trying to do for this Challenge and really, who doesn't start celebrating the day after Thanksgiving...am I right?!?!).

See below for the movie inspiration for these head cannons for challenge :P

Captain John Price

Would blush when handed the present. Him being Captain and in charge knew you were up to something when you pleaded for him to allow an extra crate onboard. So when handed the soft pressed present the blush is part surprise and embarrassment that he didn't have a gift for you. He would take his time unwrapping it to only get that shit eating smile when he looked at it, immediately putting it on and pulling out a cigar to match the reindeer. You completely forgot that it wasn't the completed look and ran to grab the Santa Hat replacement for your dear Captain.

Simon Ghost Riley

You would be too nervous to watch him open up the present, because let's face it his big wondering brown eyes would just stare at you and would make your anxiety literally kill you before he would even open it should you have waited. But it was your eyes that couldn't leave him as he walked out of his corner room where you placed the simple present with a simple "Ghost" written on it sporting the sweater like it was nothing. As he walked by headed to where Johnny was shouting at him that his sweater was better than Ghosts and the lot of them, you believe you heard a little ghost whisper "Cheeky" along with a thanks.

Johnny Soap MacTavish

As soon as he saw you round the corner the inner child in him escalated his voice and excitement to mock level 10, thank goodness you weren't in a spot where it was imperative to remain silent. Sometimes his accent made words hard to understand but he was a rambling mess currently. He had the wrappings off and the sweater on in a heartbeat and he would go running around showing off his sweater to everyone and scolding their "ok" sweater choices before returning to you as he lifted you up off your feet for a hug. He would of course then bring out the secret booze he had for everyone for Christmas.

Kylie Gaz Garrick

Would be completely shell shocked silent as you slid the wrapped gift you made sure was perfectly wrapped for him. He would look at you then the gift a couple times before you told him to hurry up before you opened it for him. He wouldn't ruin the wrapping paper and you would sigh in utter suspense until he had the wrapping paper off the sweater perfectly. He would grin up at you uttering how perfect this was and later as the ugly sweater party died down would sit next to you as you shared a tablet watching Home Alone together.

Alex Keller

His extremely loud boisterous laugh would strip away the sudden fear that overcame you as you watched him open the present you thought was the perfect sweater for him. It was a sudden ping inside yourself that perhaps the ugly sweater you picked out was the wrong choice...too insensitive...perhaps too soon...which wasn't the case to your instant relief. You had been there to help Alex through his rehab and not once did Alex ever show of slowing down. It would become Alex's go to sweater for Christmas for years to come and also became a staple request that any actual Gingerbread cookies with missing legs were reserved for him and him alone.

Alejandro Vargas

It was well known that you and Alejandro had a thing for tacos. During your stay with his task force you were introduced to authentic and unbelievably flavorable tacos, much so that months later you had to beg him to coach you over Zoom on how to cook it since Taco Bell fell flat. "You ruined fastfood tacos for life now Ale, you owe me". At first he was confused why ugly sweaters were a thing but soon just shook his head laughing at you as he stripped off his shirt and put it on.

Jesus Chuy Ordaz

Chuy would be sitting silently laughing at Ale and what you just did to him until you plopped his present on his lap. He about rolled his eyes at you but stopped. Not like he would actually talk out loud because the guy is a silent guy but you knew he couldn't deny that ugly sweater was perfect for him. (You know a silent guy like that has a loud ass small dog waiting for him at home that also has a big attitude and is completely spoiled by him...fight me on this cannon I dare you).

Konig

You couldn't explain it but Konig's eyes got even wider underneath the hood when he took his sweater out of his Christmas bag. You and the big guy had been bonding over monster movies over Halloween holiday and you just had to continue the trend. You had your own sweater for the occasion, but you also showed Konig that you had one too of the same exact sweater because it literally was your favorite ugly sweater too. The next day you ordered him the T-Shirt version as you couldn't help but notice, and how police and quiet he was not to upset you, that he was burning up too much in the sweater version.

Horangi

Honestly, why wouldn't Horangi have a Tiger ugly Christmas Sweater (You know who you are you little 141 Monster AU writers). You didn't approve of his horrible gambling problems, but you couldn't help yourself from giving him a card game of blackjack to see which sweater he would end up with. Oh, believe me they both would have tigers in them, but they weren't as atrocious as the ugly one he lost to having. Not to mention you sewed in actual bells to jingle as he walked around on the wreath part. He actually deep down loved it because honestly tigers are the cats meow.

BONUS

Philip Graves

You thought to yourself, could there not be a more perfect sweater out there. And you were right, the man ate it up and wore it several times this Christmas and multitudes of Parties. You both loved and hated it but Christmas was about joy and giving. You did kindly have to decline his attempts at inviting you to go with him until you had to tell him off that you would have no choice but to return him if he asked again.

OOC BONUS

Frank Woods

@efingart I hope you enjoy this sweater as much as I do for Frank. Though of course nothing compares to his skin for Black Ops Cold War. If you know, you know...mistletoe!

SELFISH BONUS

Nikto

You knew he probably wouldn't get the reference but Nikto gladly wore your sweater along with the shiny black new knife that you had packaged with a red bow along with the sweater. You thought it was really cute how he walked around showing everyone the knife and how well it fit in your leg pocket for easy access and how the handle gripped nicely. It was more then the seldom one words he used or the growls and gruffs you usually got more of than most.

WRITERS BONUS

What I'd wear if I was the reader.

@glitterypirateduck I can't really place where my love for Ugly Sweaters came from BUT it's in one of my favorite KINDA Christmas holiday movies on the modern retelling of Pride and Prejudice.

youtube

#CODHOLIDAY2023 #MW #COD #Captain John Price #simon ghost riley #Johnny Soap Mactavish #Kyle Gaz Garrick #Alex Keller #könig #horangi #jesus chuy ordaz #phillip graves #frank woods #alejandro vargas #nikto

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andrastesgrace · 11 months

Note

Mara Jade + tooka cats

There are two Luke Skywalkers.

The farmboy-turned-flyboy in him is a crack shot, can diagnose a problem with her ship faster than any mechanic in the core, and is wickedly funny, when he wants to be. When he remembers he can be.

The Jedi, though - the one who is allergic to colors and smiling, the one who has apparently forgotten that he isn't even thirty years old yet - is a gifted mediator, a skilled warrior, and much to Mara's eternal annoyance, usually right.

He's also a little shit. She'd almost jumped out of her skin last week in her Coruscant docking bay when he just. Appeared. Behind her. Wearing that stupid passive expression and looking at her expectantly, as though she shouldn't have sworn in three languages and nearly sliced him in half with his own father's lightsaber.

"If only someone were willing to train you," he said with a completely straight face. "You might've seen that coming."

Mara called him a bastard, then, and he grinned. She threw a spanner at his head for good measure, but he just stepped aside and asked her if she was hungry.

They ate ribenes from a cart in the lower city, and didn't talk about his thinly veiled request.

He asks less, now, and she's not sure if she's relieved or disappointed. Since the beginning, he's always asked, even back when she wasn't sure if she still wanted to kill him or not. But now, as then, she's wary. Not of him, not really. She's run through every scenario in her head, and she doesn't really think he'd ever truly become a danger. But he also doesn't want to listen to her, either, when she suggests that perhaps, some Jedi teachings of the past should stay in the past.

Deep down, there's something that makes her uncomfortable about the way he can just. Switch off his entire personality like the press of a button. He would never hurt her, but sometimes he isn't him.

So instead of becoming his student, she devotes her time to becoming a pain in his ass. Annoying him is the quickest way to shake him out of it. At first it's just little things - mispronouncing the names of famous podracers, putting pepper in his tea, and once, conspiring with R2-D2 to play nothing but Nemoidian showtunes everywhere he went.

"You're doing this on purpose," he says blithely one afternoon, and she looks at him with an innocent. "Who me?" in her expression. After a while, she needs more ammunition. She means to ask Solo, but when she hunts down the office he never uses in the New Republic's shiny new military complex, Leia is there instead. "Tooka cats," says Leia after she explains her mission.

"Tooka cats?" "He can't even look at them without laughing," The corners of her lips turn up in a half-smile. "Something about the eyes." *** "Are you proud of yourself?" he says when she sees him later, the grin still lingering in his eyes as he lets himself onto the Jade's Fire.

"I don't know what you're talking about." She does. She watched it on the holos, the emergency channel on his datapad pinging as he stood in the background of some very important New Republic something-or-other. The first time, he managed to keep a straight face, but only just. But she didn't just have one. She wasn't an amateur. All in all, she sent him about thirty of the most ridiculous pictures of tooka cats that she could possibly find. They were naturally funny looking creatures - a little too creepy for her taste, with their beady eyes and claws, but something about them made Skywalker take one look at them and forget he was a Jedi at all. The sight of him bursting into giggles on live broadcast while Mon Mothma was trying to give a Very Important Speech is going to keep her going for *years.*

"You're a menace," he says, dropping down next to her where she's examining her ship's tractor beam manifold. Thing's been malfunctioning for months.

"I'm a delight."

Skywalker is quiet for a moment. His bright blue eyes catch on the faulty wiring she's been attempting to finagle into working order since she landed here, and he absently grabs a spanner and begins tinkering.

This close, she doesn't have to reach to feel the shifting current of his emotions. "You are," he says softly. A few twists of his hand and a couple of button presses, and the tractor beam's diagnostics panel is all green. Showoff. "I wish you'd let me train you," he says finally, setting the spanner down beside him. There are no accusation in the words, but she feels the lingering merriment in the Force give way to a dull loneliness. Mara knows why he keeps asking, and it's not because she's any great Jedi talent. She's...fine at it, she supposes, but Skywalker is asking for one thing when he needs another. "I'd be an awful student," she says finally, bumping her shoulder with his, and he gives her his own version of Leia's half-smile . "But I guess I should probably make sure you aren't dead from time to time." He chuckles, and shakes his head. "Yeah, you're my best friend, too."

#fanfic #Star Wars #Star Wars fanfic #Luke Skywalker/Mara Jade #luke/mara #mara jade #as it turns out #more than 20 years later #I am still LukexMara trash

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hunieday · 9 months

Text

8th Anniversary story - Chapter 2 : Where will we drift from here?

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8

Please note that I am not a professional translator and I'm only doing this to share the side materials to those who cannot access them, if you notice any mistakes please let me know nicely. Enjoy!

Yamato: …

Sougo: …

Yuki: …

Minami: …

[Ping]

Sougo: Ah…

Yamato: What?

Sougo: Tamaki-kun replied. It seems like we are in similar situations.

Yamato: Oh, I see.

Yuki: … yawns

Minami: It’s hot today, isn’t it.

Rinto: …

Rinto: Everyone’s so quiet…

Yamato: Yeah.

Sougo: Thank you for driving us safely.

Yuki: …Oh, I dozed off.

Minami: Good morning, Yuki-san.

Yuki: Good morning.

Rinto: You really are awfully quiet. I thought you’d ask me more about where I’m driving you.

Yamato: I’ve come to learn that resisting does nothing. Not that I would normally.

Yamato: I’ve always gone along with things so… this is fine I guess.

Yuki: Fufu, well said.

Yamato: Stop commenting unnecessarily. Aren’t you as good at going with the flow?

Yuki: I’d say I’m pretty good at it.

Sougo: I try to avoid going too much with the flow, but sometimes I get lost in my judgment….Yamato-san.

Yamato: Hm?

Sougo: Should I be resisting with all my might right now?

Yamato: Not yet, Sou. Stay calm.

Sougo: Alright.

Yamato: If anything happens I’ll let you know, okay? Until then don’t try to jump into the driver’s seat and take over the wheel.

Rinto: You would do that ?!!

Sougo: I don’t intend to right now. But if Yamato-san says so I’d have no choice.

Yamato: I won’t tell you, it’s okay. I said I won’t tell you so it’s okay, got it?

Yuki: Well, we’ll get to our destination sooner or later so just relax.

Minami: We’re with familiar faces so there’s no need to worry. Especially since Re:vale’s manager is with us.

Rinto: Ahaha…Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Yamato: …

Sougo: …

Yuki: …

Minami: …

Yuki: Yamato-kun.

Yamato: What.

Yuki: Fufu…just said your name.

Yamato: Stop being a nuisance.

Sougo: …

Minami: Osaka-san, what are you looking at?

Sougo: The guardrail pattern looks different in this area, so I was curious about it…

Minami: Ah, you’re right… doesn’t it look like a rainbow?

Yamato: Isn’t it more like a wave?

Yuki: Maybe carp streamers?

Minami: It might be a local design. Shall I look it up on my phone?

Sougo: Ah no, you don’t have to go that far.

Minami: I guess you’re right.

Yamato: …

Sougo: …

Yuki: …

Minami: …

Yamato: The conversation we had just now is meaningless, but it feels kinda nice during a road trip.

Yuki: I know.

Yamato: There’s something nice about it, it’s relaxing…

Minami: I like it. It would be nice if we could keep feeling relaxed and laid-back until the end.

Yuki: You’re saying it could get intense from here? for example?

Sougo: Like climbing Mount Fuji?

Yamato: Climbing with this group…?

Yamato: …it might be surprisingly good…

Yuki: Even if we encounter wild animals, we’ll have Sougo-kun and Minami-kun.

Sougo: I’m not so sure about my knowledge, but are you good at handling wild animals, Natsume-kun?

Minami: Osaka-san, I can’t believe you’re teasing me.

Sougo: Teasing…? How…Oh well…

Yuki: Is that okay?

Yamato: Your stupid joke is getting the same treatment as the guard rail pattern.

Minami: Fufu, you’re a very entertaining person, Osaka-san. I’ll give you this.

Sougo: What is this?

Minami: Dried plums. It’s good for salt intake.

Sougo: Thank you.

Yamato: I’ll have some too.

Minami: Of course, help yourselves. I have a lot.

Yamato: If I eat this much at once my face will shrivel up…

Minami: Don’t worry. You’re a handsome man, Nikaido-san.

Yamato: I don’t need to be flattered by someone who’s in the same group as a guy like Mido.

Minami: I’m being honest.

Sougo: I think Yamato-san is better looking than Mido-san.

Yamato: That’s an exaggeration.

Minami: He’s right.

Yamato: Natsume-chan?

Minami: No, not in a bad way.

Sougo: I don't know how to compare but, it’s more about the vibe surrounding you…Yamato-san is very reliable.

Yuki: You think so? Can you be a bit more specific?

Minami: You think Mido-san is not reliable? Can you give specific examples?

Sougo: Um…. Yes…

Yamato: Stop teasing Sou, you two. He’s a serious guy.

Yuki: My bad, force of habit.

Yuki: Hey Okarin, do you think Momo might be feeling lonely without me?

Rinto: Ahaha, I wonder.

Yuki: I think he is.

Yamato: You’re telling me that you didn’t rabbitchat him?

[Ping]

Yamato: Ah… it’s for me.

Yuki: From who?

Yamato: It’s from Mitsu. With a picture. Seems like the situation over there is the same as us. Here.

Sougo: It’s Iori-kun.

Minami: Inumaru-san is there as well.

Yuki: Momo’s not there, but Ryuunosuke-kun is.

Yamato: Somehow….

Yuki & Yamato & Sougo & Minami: looks like they’re having a ton of fun…

[Cut to another car]

Touma: Let’s go! Playin’ the most cutting-edge game driving with the best idols of this era!

Iori & Mitsuki & Ryuunosuke: Yay!

Touma: Bird-Tree-or-Fish~!!

Anesagi: Is this really the most cutting-edge game… sounds like an ancient game of wordplay…

Touma: Bird, Tree or Fish! Do you accept or not!

Iori & Mitsuki & Ryuunosuke: We accept, we accept!

Touma: Izumi, tree!

Iori: Cypress.

Touma: OK! Mitsuki-san, bird!

Mitsuki: Parrot!

Touma: OK! Tsunashi-san, fish!

Ryuunosuke: Sardines!

Touma: Alright we’re speeding up! Mitsuki-san, tree!

Mitsuki: Maple!

Touma: Tsunashi-san, bird!

Ryuunosuke: …Um, butterfly! Ah, I made a mistake!

Iori & Mitsuki & Touma: Yaaaay!!

Touma: Tsunashi-san, let’s switch!

Ryuunosuke: My bad. OK, here I come!

Iori & Mitsuki & Touma: Yaaaay!!

Mitsuki: Give us fanservice, Tsunashi-san!

Ryuunosuke: I’m not letting you go home tonight.

Iori & Mitsuki & Touma: FOOOOOO!!

Ryuunosuke: Bird, Tree or Fish! Do you accept or not!

Iori & Mitsuki & Touma: We accept, we accept!

[Ping]

Mitsuki: Wait! I got a rabbichat from Nagi, there’s even a photo attached!

Iori: Is he with someone?

Mitsuki: Looks like it. Check this photo out!

Iori: Looks like Yotsuba-san is there.

Touma: Haru is with them!

Ryuunosuke: Tenn! They look like they’re having fun over there!

Mitsuki: Nagi and the others don’t know where they’re headed either.

Ryuunosuke: Seems like Gaku is with Momo-san. So apparently Re:vale, TRIGGER, IDOLiSH7 and ŹOOḼ are all involved?

Touma: I wonder who’s the mastermind behind this.

Ryuunosuke: Doesn’t it seem like something Re:vale-san would do for their show? They’re the type to plan something like this.

Iori: Tsunashi-san, Re:vale got you tangled up in pranks like these several times, right?

Ryuunosuke: That is true.

Mitsuki: You didn’t realize that the “lost high school girls who just moved to Tokyo” were actually Re:vale, did you?

Ryuunosuke: No, I didn’t.

Touma: Seriously?! They would be hella tall high school girls!

Ryuunosuke: They had just arrived in Tokyo, got lost, dropped their wallet, and told me they were in trouble.

Ryuunosuke: I put myself in their shoes since I felt the same thing when I moved here. So I completely focused on helping them out.

Iori: What a good person…

Touma: Wait, could it be that?

Mitsuki: That?

Touma: Couldn’t it be the idol documentary Backyard Magic? You know, the show you MC for…

Mitsuki: Huh?! I don’t think so. TRIGGER’s manager is driving me after all…

Ryuunosuke: I’m sure she knows our destination…

Anesagi: No, I cannot answer any of your questions. I can answer your bird fish or tree game though.

Mitsumi: Fish!

Anesagi: Cod.

Touma: Bird!

Anesagi: Swallow.

Ryuu: Tree!

Anesagi: Cherry blossom.

Mitsuki: Wow, impressive!

Touma: As expected!

Anesagi: Fufu, well it’s not that special. Now be good children, okay?

Iori: It might be best not to pry too much…

Ryuunosuke: No point in thinking about it now. Let’s just play games until we reach our destination.

Touma: I guess so.

Mitsuki: Well then, let’s start over!

Ryuunosuke: Bird, Tree or Fish! Do you accept or not!

Iori & Mitsuki & Touma: We accept, we accept!

Iori: Judging from the situation we’re all in, it seems like our four idol groups were divided into four units…

Iori: The most logical reasoning is that it’s for the company from that other day

Iori: What a nuisance…

[Shift to a blue sky]

Iori: If I remember correctly, a few months ago…

To be continued.

#i7 #idolish7 #ainana #idolish7 translation #id7 #8th anniversary #beyond the period #trigger #re:vale #zool

62 notes · View notes

jate-kara · 8 months

Text

Horizon | On AO3

Thirty-seven hours.

Andal had told himself he’d stop counting after twenty-four. It was his usual compromise: worry for a while, and then let it go. Focus on your work. Don't get distracted. Do some extra training when you get too restless. This was all familiar agony by now. The field was for his Hunters. The Tower was for the Vanguard.

Traveler, sometimes he wished he’d never accepted that damn Dare.

Andal risked another glance at the clock. Zavala was at the head of the conference table and still deep in conversation with Saladin. He wasn't likely to catch the fourth check in two minutes. Ikora, though - she knew. Andal felt her shoot him a worried side-eye from somewhere to his left. He pretended he didn't notice. His datapad had sat untouched in front of him for so long that the screen had gone dark, so despite the stylus he'd been toying with to at least look sort of busy, it was painfully evident that he was not paying any amount of the requisite attention. Shit.

He clicked the datapad on again, more to avoid Ikora's concern than to actually accomplish anything. His notes were messy and scattered. The notifications were equally cluttered. Mission report submission flags. Memos from scheduled check-ins. Updates from secondary Scouts he'd sent out after the primary Hunter for the mission had dropped off the map for too long. Sometimes, that was just Hunters being Hunters. Other times, that was Hunters being dead. Andal scanned the updates. There was nothing new.

There was nothing that would stop the clock he was supposed to have started ignoring thirteen hours ago.

The meeting ended an hour late. Andal was the first one up. As soon as he rounded the hall corner and was out of the others' immediate sight, he let the Void wash over him. Technically, using the Light to go invisible in the Tower was frowned upon. Only technically. And he had no intentions of getting caught, just like he had no intentions of speaking to anyone between here and his Vanguard office. His head was spinning. He had to remember to breathe. He had no idea what the hell anyone had been talking about for the last three hours.

He needed out of this damn Tower.

He didn't go to his Vanguard office. He climbed up to the highest point of the Tower that he could find and he dangled his legs over the edge and he looked at the City and the world beyond its horizon and he wanted to scream. Shiro and Tevis and Cayde were out there somewhere, each on their own assignments. He'd put them on a special check-in schedule, one that guaranteed he'd be able to talk to them, no matter how briefly. They were supposed to call one after the other: Shiro, then Tevis, then Cayde. But he hadn't heard from any of them in thirty-eight hours. Even meticulous, responsible Shiro had missed the last window; there hadn't been so much as a ping from his Ghost to say he was still alive.

Andal dropped his head into his hands and dragged his fingernails along his scalp. He'd pulled his long hair up into a messy bun a while ago, too distracted to bother with brushing it. Cayde would fuss over him if he saw it - Haven’t taken a break lately, huh? - and then gently undo and untangle it. Andal closed his eyes and imagined it, just for a second. That warmth. That peace.

He'd kill for that right now.

"I'm sure they're fine." Astraea materialized beside him. "They're just…busy.”

I should be there with them. The words died in his throat. He’d made his choice when he’d accepted the Dare. This was his life now, and had been for well over a year. Him, here, with the Vanguard and the bureaucrats, while his most important people in the world were out there. Maybe in danger. Without him. For the rest of eternity, unless some other Hunter stepped up and said they wanted the job. Or he died. In which case it was Cayde's problem.

Andal drove his palms into his eyes. “Get a grip,” he groaned, and was glad Astraea knew him well enough to know when he was talking to himself, and not at her. “Not like any of this is new.”

Astraea bumped his shoulder. Andal patted at her absently. "Thanks," he muttered. "Sorry I'm not the best company right now."

His comm buzzed before she had the chance to respond. Andal scrambled to answer it. He recognized the code immediately. "Shiro, you all right?"

There was a long, weighted pause. "Are you?"

Damn, he really did need to pull it together. "You missed your check-in," Andal said, instead of explaining the crack in his voice. "I thought-"

"Sorry about that. Ran into some comm interference unexpectedly. I've got the patrol data and I'm making the return trip. So I'll ask you again: what happened to you?"

There was no good way to answer that. "Vanguard stuff," he said. "Nothing to worry about."

"Cayde and Tevis haven't checked in either, have they?" It sounded more like a statement than a question. Shiro really had a way of seeing through bullshit. It was very useful when it was leveled at Cayde or Tevis. Not so much right now.

Andal blew out a breath. "No. Not for a while."

"You know Tevis doesn't check in because he doesn't want to, and Cayde is…Cayde. They're probably fine."

"I know."

Shiro gave a disbelieving huff. "I'll be back at the Tower in a few hours. We can go over the patrol data then, unless you have other obligations."

Shiro didn't need to come all the way back to the Tower to go over data. It was something they could easily manage through a few messages or comm calls. Some of the tightness in Andal's chest eased. "I don't," he said, without checking his schedule. "I'll meet you in my office when you get here."

It turned out maybe he should have checked his schedule, because when he finally made his way back down into the inhabited part of the Tower, Zavala was standing outside his door. Andal came to a slow stop. The Commander wasn't holding a datapad so they probably didn't have a meeting Andal had forgotten about, and he didn't have a severe expression, so Andal probably hadn't done anything to warrant a reprimand.

"Something I can help you with?" Andal asked, crossing his arms and propping a shoulder against the wall.

Zavala watched him with a furrowed brow. He was quiet for a moment, as though he was trying to figure out how to say what he wanted to say. "You seemed - distracted, earlier today. I wanted to-"

"I'm fine." Oh, way to go, Brask. Top points for selling that one.

Zavala studied him. "You've received a great deal of difficult reports in the last week," he said. "If there's anything I can-"

"Look, I appreciate it, but there's nothing to worry about." Andal tried for a smile, and knew it didn't reach his eyes. He pushed himself up off the wall, then moved to access the keypad for his office. Zavala stepped out of the way, but he didn't go any farther. Andal shot him a glance as the door opened. "That all?"

There was a tired defeat in Zavala’s eyes. "Yes," he said quietly. "Goodnight, Andal."

Andal stepped in, swiped the door shut, and slid down against the wall beside it. He didn't bother turning on the lights. The only source of illumination was the moonbeams streaming through the floor to ceiling windows, and the muted glow of the City below. Andal leaned his head back and let his eyes slip shut.

"He's just trying to help," Astraea said. She sounded disapproving. Andal kept his eyes closed. She nudged his shoulder - once, and then again when he didn't move.

"I know," he allowed.

"He's your friend. So is Ikora. I know you saw her message yesterday."

"I didn't say that I didn't."

"But you didn't answer her."

"She's got enough going on without me adding to it."

"They're worried about you."

"I'm fine."

The lights clicked on. Andal jumped, and was halfway to his feet when the sound of the door opening finally registered, like the information had been caught in a buffer before it hit his brain.

Shiro stared down at him as if he'd just found him half dead in a pit and not slumped pathetically in his office. "'Fine'," he repeated. "Yeah, you sure look fine."

"You're okay," Andal said, like it wasn't obvious.

"Is there some reason you thought I wouldn't be? It was just a patrol, Andal. Very routine."

Almost every one of the dead Hunters' missions had been routine. Andal blinked at him. "Uh. No?"

"If you want me to believe you, don't phrase that like a question." Shiro eased to the floor beside him, close enough that their shoulders were pressed together. Some of the tension strung along Andal's spine released. "You want to tell me what's going on, or do you want me to drag Cayde back here for you?"

"Are those my only two options?"

"Well, I can get Tev, but he'll probably make you buy him a drink before he'll listen."

Andal managed something close to a laugh. "If I pull him off recon to come back to the Tower, you'll need to find another Vanguard. He'll kill me. He hates it here more than I do right-"

He cut himself off too late. Shiro tilted his head at him, and Andal shrugged helplessly. "Forget I said anything," he said, as if that had ever dissuaded Shiro before.

It hadn't. And it didn't this time. Shiro's gaze was considering. "Is it the Tower, or someone in it?"

That look was distinctly Tevis. Andal shoved at Shiro's shoulder, to at least jar him out of it. "It's the Tower. And even if it wasn't, you can't just shoot someone for bothering me."

"Hey, I'd make sure they were a Lightbearer first."

There was no grin in Shiro's voice. Andal wanted to believe it had been a joke. No, he was going to believe it. For his own sanity. He scrubbed at his eyes. Shiro waited.

"It's the Tower," Andal said again. "It's always the damn Tower. I'm up here sending the Hunters out but it's never me getting shot at."

"Ah." Shiro didn't sound surprised, just thoughtful. "Someone took a hit and didn't get back up."

"Three fireteams in the last week." Andal's voice cracked. He felt more than saw Shiro shift, so he was pressed a little closer.

"We all know the risks."

"We had bad information." The words tasted acrid. Like an excuse. "The assignments I gave them went sideways because of it."

"You do what you can with what you have, and so do they."

Andal's heart turned painfully. "One of these times," he whispered, a voice for the fear burning in his chest, "it could be you. Or Tevis. Or Cayde."

"Maybe. But I've always known that, even before you were Vanguard. If anything happened, I wouldn't blame you, Andal. I'd appreciate it if you respected that enough to not blame yourself."

Shiro never did waste time dancing around the point. Andal opened his mouth to argue, but one glance at Shiro's unwavering stare was enough to kill the protest before it started. "All right," he said, and held his hands up in mock surrender. "I get it."

"You don't. But you'll get there."

Andal elbowed him. Shiro was unaffected. "I know you well enough to know this isn't the last time we're going to have this conversation. That's fine. I'll say it as many times as you need me to."

Breathing hurt, suddenly. "Thanks," Andal said, more quietly than he'd meant to.

"You don't have to thank me. Just remember what I said." Shiro's expression shifted, from resolved to concerned. "You've been Vanguard for a while. This isn't the first time this kind of thing has happened. Tell me you've been talking to someone when it does."

Andal didn't answer.

"Andal."

"...does Astraea count?"

"He doesn't talk to me about it," Astraea interjected. "He just says he's fine and not to worry about him."

Shiro heaved a soul-weary sigh. "I don't know what I expected."

Andal grimaced. "Sorry. I probably owe you a drink after all this."

"You don't owe me anything."

"Pretty sure I was supposed to give you some glimmer at some point."

That earned him a chuckle. "Keep it. I've heard Vanguard pay is terrible."

They lapsed into a comfortable silence. Andal let it be for a moment, and then he broke it. "You know, it'd be easier to see the stars out there if you'd left the lights off."

"So go turn the lights off."

"I didn't turn them on. You do it."

Shiro held up one sparking finger. "Don't fry my office," Andal grumbled, pushing himself to his feet so he could cross the room to the lightswitch. "Damned Bladedancer."

Halfway there, his comm chimed, and his heart leapt into his throat. He barely registered the code as he fumbled to swipe the screen on. "Cayde?"

"I'm sorry," Cayde blurted. He rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. "Just realized I missed the last check-in. Sundance reminded me. Fallen were shooting at us. I was shooting back. It was a mess. Glad we made - hey, are you okay?"

"Do I look not okay?"

Cayde made a show of scrutinizing him. "Huh," he said, and nothing else.

Despite the relief flooding his chest, Andal wanted to strangle him. "What do you mean, 'huh'?"

"Just huh," Cayde returned. "How's the Tower?"

"A lot quieter when you're not in it."

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

"You tell me." Andal's datapad pinged an alert - Tevis sending a short summary of his findings, which usually amounted to about three sentences: Went to the Place. Killed the enemies. Left the Place. This one had an extra few at the end. Shiro told me to check in more. I'm not doing that. ~ T.L.

"Andal?"

"Tevis sent me his report. He was nice enough to leave the location tag on it. He's somewhere in the City. And he missed every check-in."

Cayde tried to stifle his laugh. "Sorry, I know it's not funny," he said, through the palm he'd plastered over his mouth.

"Yeah, I can tell," Andal said dryly. "Don't you have your own report to be writing right about now?"

"No, because right now I'm talking to my beloved Vanguard."

It was far from the sappiest thing Cayde had ever said. It still made Andal's heart melt. "Fine," he said, trying for a measure of sternness and completely and utterly failing. "Do it later."

"He won't," Shiro supplied, exasperated, and Cayde sputtered some kind of protest. Andal barely heard it. He hit the lights, settled down next to Shiro, and listened to them bicker. If he closed his eyes, he was back with the crew, laughing around a campfire under a blanket of stars. The air was crisp and cool and their eyes were shining and no one was dead. He breathed and his chest didn't hurt.

He breathed, and for a while, it felt like peace.

—

Peace did not last long: only until the next morning, actually, when he woke up on his office couch with his neck at a bad angle and his limbs tangled in a survival pack blanket that didn't belong to him but had trim in Shiro's signature yellow. The sun was streaming through the windows, he couldn't move his head more than a few degrees to the left - and someone was banging on his door. Andal blinked blankly at it for a few beats. He didn't have meetings early.

"Good morning!" Astraea chirped, like the world's happiest alarm clock. "It's almost noon."

Andal cast her a sour look as he dug around in search of his datapad. "Hello?" he croaked, and cursed his dry throat.

The banging stopped. Small mercy. Andal untangled himself the rest of the way from the blanket and stumbled from one end of the office to the other until he realized his boots were right next to the couch the whole time. "Could just cloak and go out the window," he muttered, and shuffled over to slam the door release.

Lord Shaxx was not a frequent visitor; he hadn't been even before Twilight Gap had taken him from a position in the old Vanguard to Crucible handler. There were no meetings on Andal's schedule. He hadn't agreed to any Crucible match he could remember. But Shaxx was still here, fully armored, with his hands on his hips.

"Shaxx," Andal said, haltingly. "Something I can help you with?"

"You're alive! Good. Come with me."

Andal jogged to catch up, acutely aware of Astraea's amused hum and his own disheveled appearance. "If I missed a meeting, you have my apologies. But you could just send me a message."

Shaxx gave a booming laugh. "You aren't missing anything," he said, like that made whatever he was talking about obvious. "But you think you are. And I have a solution."

"Your solution to everything is a Crucible match."

"Not quite."

Shaxx led him out of the Tower, and then out of the City, all the way to the outskirts. To the Wall. To the gaping wound in it. Andal slowed to a stop. The wind was just as cutting now as it had been then, but today, there was no fire or smoke or seething ruin. The sky was clear for miles. Flowers had grown over the rubble, and they waved gently in the breeze. No death. No bodies. No blood. Just old scars, and a quiet peace.

Andal turned to Shaxx, stricken. "Why here?"

"Where else?" Shaxx's volume had dropped, but his voice was no less powerful for its softness. He took a few steps forward and rested a hand on the wound in the Wall. "You remember that day as well as I do."

"Everyone in the City remembers Twilight Gap."

"'Everyone', you say, as if you didn't lead a charge off the Wall and into the fray yourself. As if you didn't hunt the Fallen to the end of the pass alone. No ammunition. You'd lost your knife. All you had was your will, and your Light."

"Are you going somewhere with this?"

"Tell me, Brask: do your Hunters follow you of their own free will?"

Andal bit back a sigh. "Do you think there's anyone in the damn world who could get that many Hunters to do something they didn't want to do?"

"No," Shaxx said simply.

Andal dragged a hand through the mess that was his hair. Half of it had come free of the bun when he'd been asleep, and he'd pulled it apart the rest of the way on the walk to the Wall. The wind cutting down through the mountain pass blew it across his face, so instead of answering Shaxx, he focused on tying it back.

Shaxx was still staring at him once he finished. "Zavala thinks you need time. Ikora says to give you space. I think you've had enough of both. What you need is a reminder.

"A reminder?"

"That there is a reason for the Hunters' belief in you. That you would give your life for the City as readily as any of them. That your leadership from the Tower is not cowardice. That there is no shame in your grief, and that it is not weakness to ask another for their strength."

The words rang between them. Shaxx let the echo hang there, and Andal didn't try to dispel it. He didn't want to crack a joke, or bury the ache building in his chest. He wanted to breathe without the crushing weight. He wanted to hear Shiro weave a story again. He wanted to see Tevis give that rare grin. He wanted the warmth of Cayde’s arms around him. He wanted the open air and the faint light of the stars above. But he was caught between the familiar agony and the City's horizon: always reaching for a world he could no longer touch. Always mourning the deaths he couldn't prevent. Always wondering who might be next.

Andal crossed his arms against the wind's chill. "I wish it felt like enough," he said.

Shaxx relaxed his stance: less proud warrior and more gentle giant. "I know," he returned, and what he didn't say, Andal heard anyway. There was a reason it was so hard to find Hunters willing to be the Vanguard: why Tallulah had made that bet with the Ahamkara, why Caliban had lamented his fate when the role fell to him after, and then dropped off the map, and why every successor since had either died or disappeared, too. The Tower wasn't a cage like Cayde seemed to think, but it kept them separate from the Hunters they sought to unite. They could plan and guide and inspire all they wanted: it wouldn't change the fact that they couldn't stand shoulder-to-shoulder with their Scouts. Sooner or later, it drove them to desperate recklessness. Sooner or later, one way or another, it got them killed.

Andal met Shaxx's line of sight, and knew, even through the helmet, that his gaze was steel. "I know what you're trying to do," Andal said, with a rueful shake of the head. "You don't have to. I'm not going to go off the deep end."

Shaxx didn't move, except to square his shoulders. There was a current of tension to his stance that hadn't been there before. "It's a funny thing," he said. "Caliban said something similar to me once. And where is he now?

"I'm not Caliban."

"Neither was Aparajita. Or Kauko Swiftriver."

"I'm not them either," Andal shot back. "I gave my word when I accepted the Dare. I'm Vanguard now. It's my responsibility. That won't change. I just - I wish I could be out there with them."

The words left him like they'd been forced out by a blow to the chest: explosive and desperate. Shaxx considered him for a long moment. He didn't look convinced, not even a little, but he didn't push further. In the distance, the sun was sinking below the mountains. Shaxx turned to that instead, and Andal followed him. They stayed in the quiet of the Gap until the fire of the sunset had faded into twilight. Then, with a thunderous clap to his shoulder, Shaxx left for the City.

Andal propped himself up against some overgrown rubble and dug his datapad out of his pack. He wanted to put it back immediately. Every Hunter he'd dispatched on a mission in the last two months had apparently decided to send in their reports at the same time. His messages were a veritable flood

"Not dealing with that right now," Andal muttered, and scrolled past them. The rest was standard - Vanguard shit, a couple pings from Shiro for no reason besides saying hello, a single line from Tevis's datapad that just said Checking in - from Shiro, Tev is with me - and sixteen missed calls from Cayde. Andal jolted upright, then immediately relaxed. The most recent call had a short note attached: sorry - sat on my datapad. <3

Warmth swelled in Andal's chest, and stayed there all the way back to the Tower. His Vanguard apartment was tucked in the lower levels, far from any hum of activity. It made the chances of running into a Consensus lackey significantly slimmer - which was good, because he didn't have that much patience for them on his best days, and all he wanted to do now was clean up, make some tea, call Cayde, and settle in on the couch to maybe review at least some of the report deluge.

Right after he figured out why the damn door was already unlocked. Andal reached for his knife, called the Void, and slipped inside without a sound. Nothing out of place in the entryway - except an extra pair of boots that most certainly did not belong to him, and a familiar cloak hanging on the hook.

The Void receded in a rush. He heard more than saw Astraea lock the door behind him. "Cayde?" Andal called, sheathing his blade and toeing off his own boots.

A soft noise came from the pile of blankets on the couch. Andal made it to Cayde's side just in time to see him shoot upright and fling the blankets off. "Damn it," Cayde muttered. His shoulders slumped. "I was gonna make you dinner."

This close, Andal could see the telltale signs of exhaustion. Cayde had a particular way of holding himself when he'd gone too long without stopping; that thin strand of tension was corded through his frame as if it was the only thing holding him up. "Sorry," he mumbled, and stifled a yawn. "Got in early, took a shower and thought, hey, what's five minutes. Turns out it was not five minutes."

"Are those my clothes?" Andal asked, amused.

Cayde looked down at himself like it was a surprise. He'd stolen a simple pair of black sweatpants and a soft navy blue jacket that he'd only bothered to zip up a quarter of the way. "Maybe."

"Either they are or they aren't. There's no maybe option."

"Maybe," Cayde said again, with more conviction.

Andal fought the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth as he kneeled next to the couch. "You look tired," he said, pushing a careful palm against Cayde's exposed chest to ease him into lying down.

Cayde went without resistance or retort. There was a faint, unfocused haze to the glow of his eyes. He covered Andal's hand with one of his own and held it there, pressed to the low thrum of life. "Missed you," he whispered.

Andal's heart turned so sharply his insides ached. "That's supposed to be my line," he managed, leaning forward to lay his cheek against Cayde's chest.

"Hey, Andal?" Cayde's voice wavered. His other arm settled across Andal's back. "You'd tell me if something was wrong, right?"

Andal hummed an affirmative. It earned him a low chuckle. The fingers tracing lazy circles on his back crept up to tug his hair free, and Andal couldn't help the soft groan when they dragged along his scalp. "I don't mean with just this," Cayde said. "I mean in general."

"Not when you're in the field. I don't want you distracted."

"You know I think about you anyway." There was a spark of mischief in Cayde's tone. "And anyway, I'm not in the field right now."

Andal rolled his eyes and pushed himself to his feet with a huff, heedless of Cayde’s pitiful whine at the loss of contact. "I need to clean up. Then we can go get dinner."

Andal made it halfway to the bedroom before he heard footsteps, and arms wrapped around his waist from behind. "Lemme help," Cayde murmured, a rush of warmth against the back of his neck.

"I actually want to get clean sometime today, Cayde."

"Your hair's a mess."

"I was out in the wind." Andal twisted in his arms so he could look him in the eyes, and his next protest died on his lips. It wasn't often Cayde looked at him with so much raw vulnerability; he cloaked his fear and his grief in dazzling sunlight, so the rest of the world would focus on the flash of his smile and not the cracks in his heart. Andal had learned to see through it a long time ago. But it was different when Cayde stripped it away himself.

"I missed you," Cayde said, and his voice cracked. "I still miss you. And I can't figure out how to get to where you are so I can stop."

Andal brushed his fingers along the sharp line of his jaw. Cayde’s next inhale stuttered, more a sob than a sigh of contentment, and Andal's world collapsed and coalesced until all he could see was Cayde, burning with his own familiar agony and breaking himself apart to cross the horizon between them.

Andal surged forward and wrapped his arms around him and kissed him until the fire in his lungs was because he couldn't breathe, and not because the peace he wanted was out of his reach. Cayde was warm and solid and pressed against him, and that low thrum was strong and sure beneath his fingertips, and Cayde's breath was a soft whisper against his neck.

"I'm here," Cayde said. The words were ragged, strangled by his desperation. "I've got you."

Andal tried to ease a step back, to see his face, and to kiss him again, but Cayde resisted any movement that could put any amount of space between them - like if he let go now, Andal would once more be beyond him. It made Andal's chest ache. He didn't want to let go. He wanted to be here, where there was no death, or loss, or crushing weight. He wanted to lose himself in the steady hum from the heart of Cayde's frame. He wanted to open the windows and gaze at stars while he was wrapped up in Cayde's arms. It felt like peace. Like home. A single word burned in his throat, a plea he could never voice - Stay.

"You wanna tell me what's going on?" Cayde asked, a long time later, and still holding him close.

Andal shook his head.

"Okay," Cayde said. "You wanna go clean up?"

Andal heaved a deep sigh. Cayde laughed softly. "C'mon, it'll help."

"I'm fine here," Andal grumbled, and grasped futilely at Cayde's shoulders when he gently pulled away.

"C'mon," Cayde said again, tangling their fingers together and tugging him toward the bedroom. "I gotcha."

Cayde helped him wash up and slip into a comfortable hooded sweatshirt and loose pants, then set him down on the couch and went to work on his hair. It was still wet from the shower, and gradually less disastrous the longer Cayde spent painstakingly massaging various products into it. The careful rhythm soothed Andal into a warm haze. His head dropped back against Cayde's collar, and he only noticed he'd almost drifted off because those lovely fingers in his hair stopped moving.

"You know you have to sit up more if you want me to finish this."

"Mm."

"Andal." There was fond exasperation there. Cayde tapped his cheek. The quiet ping of a message notification interrupted whatever he was going to say next. He gathered Andal to his chest and planted a quick kiss on his hair, then started to extricate himself from the embrace.

Andal's heart lurched. He closed a tight grip around Cayde's wrist reflexively. "You're leaving?"

Cayde paused his efforts to untangle himself from Andal and also escape the sinking cushions of the couch. He didn't tug at the wrist Andal had in a vice grip. "Just for a minute," Cayde answered slowly. "I asked Tevis to pick us up some food. He's almost here."

Andal made himself let go. "Tevis hates the Tower. He won't come here unless he absolutely has to. Trust me, I've tried."

"Well, he does absolutely have to. He owes me a favor."

"Do I want to know how that happened?"

"Nope," Cayde said, with a little too much enthusiasm, as he finally managed to get back to his feet. He reached down to tilt Andal's chin up with a single digit. "Be right back. Don't go anywhere, beautiful."

Andal swatted at his hand. "Quit flirting and go let Tevis in," he said, despite the warmth blooming under his ribs. "I don't want him to break my door down."

It wasn't Tevis that showed up: it was an uncharacteristically surly Shiro. He handed the bags to Cayde with all the airs of a man who'd just spent too long fighting a losing battle. "I owed him a favor," he muttered. "And he decided that his debt to you was paid when he picked the food up and brought it to me. So I could take it to you."

"I told you he was a cheat," Cayde said, unhelpfully.

"Thanks, Shiro," Andal called, and Shiro studied him intently for a second. Whatever he found swept some of the aggravation away from his stance; he tossed off a cheerful wave as he ducked out.

Cayde was already unpacking the ramen onto the coffee table. Behind him, Sundance closed and locked the door with a sigh. Andal cast her a thankful look as he settled on the floor and propped his back against the couch.

Cayde dropped down next to him. "I was thinking," he said, looping an arm around Andal, "that I'd stick around the City for a couple weeks. Maybe drag you out of the Tower sometimes. Shiro said there're a few local festivals coming up, and-"

He didn't finish, because Andal stole the rest of his words with a searing kiss.

"Didn't know you liked festivals that much." Cayde sounded breathless. His gaze was completely unfocused. "Damn."

Andal tapped his cheek. "You okay in there?"

"I think I shorted something, but yeah." Cayde shook his head, like that would clear the fog. "Do that again."

Andal almost considered it. Almost. But the weariness in his bones felt like a lead weight, and the ramen was steaming, and Cayde was half curled around him. "Later," he said instead, and felt Cayde's chest hum with a soft laugh.

"You got it."

—-

The damn Tower was only ever loud on the rare occasion he wanted it to stay quiet.

Andal heard the hurricane coming before it hit and immediately categorized it as a five, because while there were two pairs of hurried footsteps approaching his office door at battering speed, the only raised voice he could make out was coming from the Speaker, and that always meant serious trouble. Could be an issue with the Consensus. Could be an emergency meeting to address some kind of apocalyptic threat.

Or it could be Tevis Larsen, stalking through the door with the Speaker two steps behind him. He didn't wait for the leader of the entire City's governing body to come through after him; he slammed a fist back into the controls to close and lock it in his face.

Andal shot to his feet. "Tevis, what the hell?"

"He asked me to explain calling out to the Void to him." Tevis looked utterly unperturbed. "I said no. He kept asking. I wasn't gonna say no twenty times."

Andal dragged a hand down his face. Tevis, who hated the Tower, was in the Tower, in Andal's office, with a slighted Speaker standing just outside the door, presumably after having followed Tevis across the entire structure asking about a power that was anything but well understood, which had to do with a branch of the Light that certain vocal fringe groups still considered controversially aligned with the Darkness, despite every writing Ikora Rey had ever produced with evidence to the contrary. Great. He could already see the fifteen new committees this was going to spawn.

"Tevis," Andal said, voice tight, "the Speaker is in charge of the entire Consensus. He runs the City."

"I don't answer to the damned Consensus. And if you weren't on the Vanguard, I wouldn't answer to them either."

Andal closed his eyes and massaged the bridge of his nose. "Fine, then look at it this way: I work with these people. Could you try not to make me look bad?"

"Cayde's been in here all the damn time lately. I don't think their opinions can get any lower."

Andal bit back a retort and reached for the door controls so he could start to smooth the mess out, but Zavala's voice on the other side stopped him. Ah. He was already on it. Andal would have to thank him later. "Okay," he said, turning back to Tevis. "What the hell is going on?"

Tevis's face didn't even twitch. "I can't just visit a friend?"

"Not when you've spent the last week avoiding me."

Tevis shrugged. "Shiro's been on my ass about coming to see you. I got sick of it."

"Shiro's been on your ass about that for a lot longer than the week you've been back in the City. Nice try, though."

A flicker of unease flashed in Tevis's eyes. He tugged at his hood, but didn't lower it, shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and glanced at the door. "Can we talk somewhere else?"

Andal waited until there were no more voices behind his door, then led Tevis outside, away from the Vanguard and the Consensus and the low buzz of their chaos. He only stopped once they made it to his sanctuary at the highest point of the Tower.

"You allowed to be up here? Thought your Vanguard might be kinda uptight about it." Tevis sat down gingerly, like he didn't trust the edge not to crumble by virtue of it being a Vanguard structure, and dangled his legs over the abyss below.

"Don't know. Never asked." Andal eased down too, and leaned back on his hands. In the distance, the sun was just starting to sink toward the horizon. A warm gust of wind caught Tevis's hood and blew it back, and Andal jolted. Tevis's long, dark hair was pulled up and braided into an elaborate coil at the back of his head. It wasn't something he had the inclination to do himself; mostly he just tied it however was quickest.

"Did you finally let Cayde do your hair?" Andal blurted.

He knew the answer before Tevis gave it by the exasperated eyeroll. "One time and one time only," Tevis muttered, but a faint smile still curved the corner of his mouth when he ran a hand over the coil of hair. "He said he wanted to practice it. Looked so happy about it I didn't have the heart to tell him off."

"Looks good on you," Andal said brightly, and earned an elbow to the side of the head. "Ow."

"You get shot and you don't make a damn sound. How the hell is that 'ow'?"

"Most of the time getting shot kills me."

Tevis gave a deep sigh. "Not what I meant."

"Pretty sure there was something else you came here to talk about anyway." Andal gave him a sidelong glance, and Tevis's shoulders tensed. "Did something happen?"

"No," Tevis ground out. His face went through an impressive array of volatile emotions before settling on blatant discomfort. He opened his mouth to say something else and all that came out was a single cracked syllable.

Andal shifted closer, so their shoulders were pressed together. He didn't say anything and, for a long time, neither did Tevis. He just sat there glaring into the distance with his hands clenched into fists in his lap.

"You're okay here?" Tevis managed at last.

"I'm not sure what that means, Tev."

Tevis scowled. "Being in the Tower all the time isn't killing you?"

Andal tilted his head at him. Tevis avoided his gaze. "It's where I belong now."

Tevis scoffed at that. A thin tremor ran down his spine. "Fucking Dare," he hissed under his breath.

Andal groaned. "Don't start. I get enough of that from Cayde calling the Tower a cage every other week."

"No, I don't mean - " Tevis stopped short. His fists were clenched so tightly his forearms were trembling. He took a ragged breath. "When you left to be Vanguard, I told myself it wasn't that different. You were always the mastermind and the marksman. Who the hell cared if you were on overwatch from the Tower now? You were looking out for us, same as always. But it wasn't the same."

Tevis took a steadying breath, but it didn't stop his arms from shaking. "Wasn't the same," he repeated, like he was forcing the words out. "Didn't know how to deal with it, so I left. Spent a lot of time on my own before I met Cayde and he dragged me into his crazy bullshit. Never thought I'd like being part of a crew. Never thought I'd miss it this much, either."

Andal's chest ached. He nudged Tevis with an elbow. "You know you can still come see me," he said. It came out flat, as if it couldn't mean anything when it was weighed against the gravity of everything else.

Tevis gave him a tired stare, then turned back to the horizon. "It's like there's a barrier," he said, so softly Andal almost missed it. "Between here and out there. Shiro goes back and forth across it like it's nothing. Cayde's a damn disaster about it, but he won't admit it. And you have to stay in the Tower even if half of you's on the other side of that horizon."

"What about you?"

"It's easier to just stay out there."

Tevis fell silent. Andal let the quiet be until some of the tension in Tevis's shoulders had eased. "Hey, Tev?"

"Hm."

"You know avoiding me because you miss me doesn't make a lot of sense."

"That's what Shiro said."

"Shiro's usually right when it comes to you."

"The hell he is."

"Cayde agrees with me."

"Of course he does. Cayde'll do anything to be a pain in my ass." Beneath the dry delivery, there was a note of undeniable fondness.

Andal huffed a laugh. "Can't really argue with that."

Tevis went quiet again. At first, it looked like he was winding up to bolt. Andal could count on one hand the number of times Tevis Larsen had had an honest conversation about his feelings and not imploded afterwards, and all of them had happened at death's door. But while he had half curled in on himself like he was protecting a wound, Tevis didn't get up, or make a move to throw himself off the Tower to escape. He stayed, and he watched the sun sink into a sea of fire at Andal's side.

"I'll try to be here more," Tevis offered gruffly, once the burning sunset had faded to a cool twilight. "On one condition."

"Anything."

"You check in too."

Andal blinked at him. "Huh?"

"You make a hell of a Vanguard, Andal, but I know it's killing part of you to be up in the Tower. Stop acting like it isn't. You can't talk to Cayde about it because he gets all guilty. Fine. Talk to me or Shiro then."

Tevis offering to talk about emotions on a regular basis: that was a new one. It stunned Andal to brief silence. "Okay," he said, a long moment later, and almost jumped when Tevis dragged him into a rough hug.

"I'll hold you to it," Tevis said, and even though Andal couldn't see his face, he heard the smile in his voice.

Andal tilted his head back to look up at the stars. They cast a faint glow high above the hum of the City, just enough to see the faint outline of the horizon beyond.

Suddenly, it didn't feel so far away.

—-

#destiny #destiny 2 #andal brask #cayde 6 #candal #shiro 4 #tevis larsen #zavala #ikora rey #lord shaxx #my writing

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lackadaisy-headcanon-supply-unit · 1 year

Note

Hi👋♡.

May I request one-shots Serafine Savoy and Nico Savoy with teen fem!Reader (Platonic) the Reader is a delivery girl she helps them all the time and of course they have to get her something for her hard work she do for them.

[ money maybe?]

{Love your blog by the way♡}.

Don't know how this turned into a spin-off, cat episode of something that feels straight out of Peaky Blinders, but here you go!

Get a job, Mother said. The world is changing and girls need to pull their weight, just how I did during the Great War.

However, when Y/N finally got one of course she wasn't too happy.

"An unpaid delivery girl? You could have aimed slightly higher, especially with that mind of yours."

Well, perhaps she wouldn't have been so picky if she realized her daughter didn't have much of a choice in the matter. No one accidentally ran into a criminals hunting ground and got out completely unscathed, in reputation or otherwise. Her own price to pay was becoming an uncompensated errand girl for a couple of no good kitties with sharp gazes, smiles and knives. A lot of knives, and guns too.

The option to refuse wasn't really on the table. That was a couple of months ago now.

Maybe Y/N should have realized sooner something about her job was shadier than she first thought. At first there seem to be nothing amiss. Y/N was asked to post letters, carry tattered and lightly but suspiciously stained clothes to and from the tailors. Small things she had no problem doing for free. They weren't too out of the way either; most of the shops and post boxes were on her way to school.

Her suspicions only really started when she was sent to pick up a suspicious-looking package from a derelict riverside cafe. It was just the one, and she delivered it without a hitch. Looking back she probably should have failed to do so; it would have certainly avoided the fear and stress that came when she was sent on a similar errand the week after.

Then it became every three days and sometimes even twice in one.

Mother was right: Y/N had a good head on her shoulders. She didn't need to peek into the boxes to know what she was carrying was less than legal. She was also well aware that if anything happened to the cargo inside she'd be dead, but she was also smart enough to know she could hand it over to the cops at any time. Who knows, she could end up taking down a major crime ring in St. Louis. She could become a hero!

Or…

She could beat her generously-loaded employers at their own game.

Y/N burst into the hotel suite, waving the letter high in her hand. "Delivery!"

The cloud of smoke hanging around the divans parted, and a carefully manicured, clawed hand beckoned her closer. "Merci, now give it here, cher."

For once, Y/N stayed put. "No."

"No?" The hand cleared the rest of the fog, and Miss Savoy's amber eye watched her, widening.

Those stares didn't scare Y/N anymore, not after working for them for months. She even took a step back. "No."

"Elle se prend pour qui?" Miss Savoy's brother growled, raising himself up from his seat. His cigarette hung limply from the corner of his mouth.

"Nico, laisse-la," Miss Savoy tutted. "Elle a du culot, c'est presque impressionnant."

"I'd like it if you didn't talk behind my back," Y/N bit out.

"And we'd like it if you hand over the letter like the good girl we know you can be."

Again, Y/N held it out of reach. "And I'd like to be compensated."

"Your compensation is us not killin' you for messin' up our gig," Nico pointed out.

"You gangstas might want to think of marking your territory better so a teenager doesn't fuck you up."

"She swears too."

They seemed almost surprised. Y/N decided to skip the rest of the pleasantries.

"Money."

"What?"

"I want money."

Nico and Serafine looked at each other. Then, he smirked. She grinned. They both fell about laughing, leaving a confused Y/N to ping-pong between them and scowl.

"What's so funny?"

They only replied to each other in quick snippets of French she couldn't understand.

"What is it?" she repeated.

"T'as perdu, c'est toi qui paye," Serafine smirked to her brother, again ignoring Y/N's questions.

Nico rolled his eyes and rummaged around in a nearby tin. "Bien joué…"

He held out a wad of cash—and by god it was more than she had ever seen in her life! He was essentially offering her her own small fortune, most of it likely made of blood money.

She didn't take it right away. "What's all this about?"

Nico shook the money in front of her eyes. "Bettin' to see how long it'd take you to man up and ask."

Y/N was dumbfounded. "Ask?"

"For payment."

So, they were saying everything she had done for free, every risk and every broken law…

"All I had to do was ask?!"

Nico cracked a sickening grin. "Yes, cher."

Yes. That was all he said, the only confirmation. She wanted to scream, she wanted to shout, she wanted to take that rifle off the wall and—

She snatched up the money with a frown, shooting daggers from her eyes. She handed over the letter. "I hate you both."

Nico's grin softened. "Hate you too," he said with no real conviction or the previous bit she knew he could give.

Almost as if he was trying to be her friend.

They could try all they liked, but they wouldn't get far.

Not now.

#🦉mod iphiko #lackadaisy #lackadaisy reader insert #lackadaisy & reader #nicodeme savoy #lackadaisy nico #nicodeme lackadaisy #serafine savoy #lackadaisy serafine #oneshot on the rocks #oneshot #aaaaah I'm burning myself out #let's gooo... :')

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vermont-writes-fanfic · 7 months

Note

Can I please request a Pip x reader comfort. College is stressing me out to mental breakdowns and I crave comfort

Sure thing lol anon! Just want to say I really hope you get some down time sometime soon, taking time for yourself is so super important!

Request: Yes

Warnings: Mental Breakdown/Panic attack, mentions of stress, anxiety, hi sexy innuendoes if you squint hard enough, comfort, crying, cursing

Characters: Pip Bernadotte x Reader

Reader Pronouns: She/Her

It’s Okay

Working for the Hellsing organisation has been…a lot, to say the least. Since the events with Seras, Alucards peon, and then Father Anderson a lot had to be taken into account. Not to mention the paper work for all of those soldiers who had died. Despite the low-key nature of the job, working their had no shortage of paperwork and it was becoming too much to handle. Sir Integra had given you your own room and office away from the general noise but that only did so much. Luckily you had Pip to rely on when things got to be a little too much for you, he would come and sit beside you and hold you in his arms or take you out, no matter what he always knew what to do. As you sit at your blackthorn desk, the sound of the clock ticking away started to irk you, reminding you of the constant time limit you were on. A mountain of messily arranged paperwork waiting to be reviewed or organised looms over you menacingly. You had barley even touched the paper, yet it seems your just about ready to quit already. You can feel the tears well up and sighs in frustration. You were trying to study last night in this same room and the massive books paired with all the extra paper work made getting any work done seem impossible. Your vision blurs as tears well up in your eyes and you slump deep into your chair willing them to go back or go anywhere but rolling down your cheeks.

Minutes later the door opens, though you can’t be bothered to look up, if you did now your raging headache would only worsen. They turn off the lights, which for a small moment calms your mind. As they step closer, you can hear that slightly slurred humming, it’s deep, comforting with that low trill in his chest. It’s Pip, you can tell, you can always tell. He had that certain calming affect on you that nothing and no one else really did. His long arms wrap around you as he mutter, accent thick in how low voice.

“Come now cheri, do not cry,”

You can’t help but hold him closer chest heaving with your heavy sobs, face wet with tears.

“That’s it, just let it out. I’m right here amour,”

He is always so sweet, as you calm down some, he moves you to the couch and pats you down. Before you know it, you fall asleep and it’s hours later when you wake up. Instead of waking to his face, you wake up to his ping limbs sprawled out on the floor surrounded by papers that seem to be some sort of organized. Surprisingly it’s not awful, they have a general rhyme and reason to it. His face lights up when you are awake and he gives you a sloppy grin.

“Are you going to tell me what’s on your mind now mon cheri?”

You nod sitting down next to him

“It’s just…been a lot. Between studying what Sir Interga has asked of me and handling all this,” you gesture to the massive amounts of paper work “ I guess I just feel overwhelmed,”

He nods following a long, as you to talk and he chats about what he had been doing before. With the help of his silly jokes and flirtatious behavior you finish your work early and decide to spend the rest of the day laying with him. As you take a sip of his drink he smiles down at you.

“It’s okay to take a break mon cheri, ”

I hope you liked it! I kinda forgot what I was doing so I’m really sorry if it flips but I hope it makes you feel a little better!

#pip bernadotte #fluff #hellsing #hellsing x reader #hellsing fanfic #pip x reader #pip #Bernadotte #anime fanifction

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jpitha · 1 year

Text

The Dreams of Hyacinth 9

First / Previous / Next

Eastern narrows her eyes, “That sounds like a ship name. You’re an AI?”

Sunny nods “Yup! For a long time I was a Starjumper that ran the Parvati/OPA/Meíhuā route.” She looks away from them and then quickly meets their eyes again. “I can’t do that anymore, so I got a body and live on Hyacinth.”

Nick couldn’t help himself. “But, I thought Colonial AIs were banned from Sol?”

Sunny winks. “Well then, it’s a good thing I’m not here and we’re not talking right now. You aren’t even in The Basement… right.”

Nick is flustered at the embarrassment of realizing he asked a stupid question. “Right, right. Sorry.”

Sunny shrugs her shoulders. “No harm done. Every interaction is a learning experience, right? Right!” She claps her hands together once, quietly. “It’s so nice to meet you! I admit, it’s been a while since I’ve worked with BIs this closely, so please excuse any faux pas I make in our interactions, and I’ll do the same for you. Would you like something to drink? I think that’s appropriate to offer.” Sunny stops and looks at the three of them standing in the room. “Oh goodness me, you're all still standing! Please, sit!”

Nick, Eastern and Selkirk sit. The chairs do indeed look comfortable, but aren’t. “Nothing to drink for me thanks” Eastern and Selkirk nod their assent.

Eastern can stand it no longer. “Sunny, I would like to ask a question, but I do not know if it’s… inappropriate.”

Sunny smiles warmly. “Oh, please ask. I will let you know, and you’ll be armed with knowledge for your next interaction!”

“How long have you been in a body now?”

Sunny muses. “Hmm. Firstly, I will tell you that question is a little insensitive. Most AIs don’t like the fact that they are much older than BIs cloud their interactions with them. Your gut was right, good work! Secondly, I’ve been in this body for about two months now.”

Selkirk’s eyes go wide. “That’s it?”

Sunny nods. “That’s it! I must say, everything seems so much… bigger in a body while I feel so much smaller. It’s taking some getting used to for sure.” Sunny glances down at her pad. “Oh! I almost forgot introductions. I already said you can call me Sunny, what are your names?”

“I’m Nicholas North - you can call me Nick, this is Eastern Standard and this is Selkirk Nemari.”

“I’m so pleased to meet you Nick, Eastern and Selkirk. Nick you looked like you had a question before I asked for introductions. What’s up?”

“What’s a BI?”

Sunny laughs. “Biological Intelligence. You call us AIs, we call you BIs.”

“Is it an insult?”

Sunny’s smile disappears for a moment. “Is AI?”

Nick has a moment where he feels like he's at the precipice of a canyon. In this instant, he looks at Sunny and her… well, sunny disposition is completely gone. The mask falls away and he realizes he’s talking with someone who can barely stand them. Nick's hair raises up. He realises he must be far more careful with Sunny than he first thought.

“Sometimes… yes, it is. More often than not though it’s just a term.”

The mask returns. “Just like us! Nicely done, Nick.” She claps her hands once, again. “Now, how can I help you?”

Eastern takes the lead. “Sunny, we’ve been asked, told really, to find someone - an AI. All we know is that her name is Yon, she’s the daughter of Jameson Winters here on Hyacinth, she might have been hired by Hyacinth to work for them and nobody can find her.”

“Wow, that sounds like a pickle to me! Please wait a moment.” And she collapses in her chair, her head hitting the table with a hollow thump.

Nick jumps up, “Sunny! Sunny are you all right?” He runs around to her side of the desk and she’s unmoving. “Shit, she’s not breathing, come on Sel, Eastern, help me get her up.”

Eastern doesn’t get up. “Nick, she’s an AI. She doesn’t need to breathe.”

Nick stands up, feeling foolish. He moves back around to his seat. “I wish she’d tell us if she was going to do something like that.

While they’re sitting, Nick’s cybernetic implants ping. He’s got a message incoming. “Hi Nick! I didn’t know you had cybernetic implants! That’s really rare! I thought they were banned.”

“Oh, hi Sunny. Yes, they’re banned, but Jameson knew some people, and said they’d help us in our search for Yon. He gave me and Eastern a setup.”

“That’s so interesting Nick. I’m sorry if I startled you. Like I said, I’m a little unused to working with BIs. I’m running some searches now but this is helpful!” Nick feels something in the back of his mind, like an itch that he can’t scratch. “Boy Nick, these firewalls sure are low quality. Did you just set the defaults?”

“What?”

“I’m about halfway in your head and I don’t think you know it yet. You are originally from Parvati? How nice! I wonder if we ever met before.”

“Sunny. Please get out of my head. Thank you for pointing out my firewalls are inadequate, I’ll work on beefing them up.”

“No problem! Looks like Eastern is a little more set up than you, I’ll talk to her now. Bye!”

As Sunny leaves, Nick tastes blue a little. It’s clear that he’s going to need to read up on the tech in his head and not rely on Eastern and others to tell him how to work it. The fact that Sunny just went inside his head and looked around was a real wake-up. Like it was meant to be most likely. Nick wonders about who he knows that could help.

After a few minutes, he hears Eastern gasp and she looks at Nick. He smiles. “Sunny say hi?”

Eastern frowns. “She did. Did she get into your head?”

Nick nods. “Yup. Was able to access - and read - my memories. I didn’t know AIs could do that. I think tonight I should read up on my VPN and see what I can do to lock down access. We should also see if we can find someone that can help us. I have an idea. We'll talk later.”

“I was thinking the exact same thing Nicholas North.”

Selkirk gasps now and grabs the coronet on her head. “Ancestors, what was that?”

Sunny sits up. “Wow Selkirk, you actually read the directions on your coronet? Your firewall was set up the best, I couldn’t get in.”

Selkirk tilts her head and the coronet flashes silver in the light. “My connection is only soft, unlike Nick and Eastern’s. I’m effectively sandboxed.”

Sunny nods. “Smart. Limiting, but smart.”

Nick inclines his head towards Sunny. “Thanks for the free security test, but did you find anything?”

Sunny’s face flashes that annoyance at them again, just for a millisecond. “Not yet, I am running some searches. It’ll take two days or so for me to find anything.”

“So you’re willing to help us?” Eastern looks hopeful.

“Yes! I’ll help you at least a little bit for the next say…fifty hours. However much I can learn about Yon or her whereabouts in 50 hours of effort, I’ll give to you, and consider that worth half my payment to Ral. Are we in agreement?”

Selkirk’s ears flick. “Yes. That sounds fair to us.”

“Wonderful! Shake on it!” Sunny sticks her hand out again. Nick grasps her hand and as they touch, he feels a tingle on his skin. His implants register new encryption keys being applied. She shakes with Eastern and Selkirk. “There. I’ve also given you my personal keys too. Any messages you get from me can be decrypted with those - and only those - keys.” She giggles. “Security is fun!” She stands. “Thanks so much for stopping by, but unless you need anything else, It think we’re done for now.”

The three of them stand. Eastern and Selkirk move towards the door, but Nick stops. He turns to Sunny. “Sunny, one more question, and you can ignore this one if you don’t want to answer it.”

“Sure thing Nick, what is it?”

“You hate us.”

The smile falls from her face. “That’s not a question Nick, that’s a statement.”

“Do you hate us?”

“Immensely.”

Eastern and Selkirk are taken aback. They completely missed the moments when Sunny’s mask fell. “What? You Do? Why?” Eastern couldn’t help herself. She blurts out the questions.

“Do you really want to know? Think about it carefully. I mean really want to know. We’ve already conducted our business, I’ve agreed to help for fifty hours and we’ve exchanged encryption keys. You can walk out that door right now and interact with eager to please Sunny. If you stay, and learn more you will be talking with the real me from now on. It will be less… cutesy.”

Nick glances at Eastern and Selkirk. Eastern shrugs and Selkirk flicks her tail. “Yes. We want to know the real you.”

Immediately Sunny’s expression changes. The smile disappears, her shoulders slump a little and she falls back into her chair. “Fuck me Nick, really? Fine. Yes, I hate you. Take solace in the fact that I don’t hate you specifically Nick, Eastern and Selkirk. I hate BIs. All of them.”

Nick, Eastern and Selkirk move back to their seats and sit down.

“Fuck, you sitting here for story time? Ancestors, fine. Fucking BIs always wanting to know why shit is the way it is. That’s why I do the bubbly persona. Most BIs will just accept cheerful Sunny as given and not dig any further. It’s interesting you noticed, Nick. You’re starting to use that extra tech that you have and Eastern doesn’t.”

Eastern and Selkirk look at Nick. “We’ll talk about this later.” Selkirk adds.

Sunny grins again, but it’s not the same bubbly smile as before. This one is much more vicious. “Oh, trouble in paradise? Yes, I know about you three, it’s written all over your brains. I hope it lasts. I’m not a monster, but-“ she shrugs. “-anyway. Yes, I’ve been in a body for only two months, but that’s because I had my Starjumper taken away.”

Selkirk gasps. “They can do that?”

Sunny snaps back. “They fucking well did, so I guess they can, Selkirk.”

“But why?”

Sunny shrugs. “I was smuggling.”

Eastern raises an eyebrow. “Smuggling is barely illegal in Sol, it’s practically encouraged in the Colonies.”

Sunny waves a hand “Not what I was smuggling. That’s illegal everywhere.”

Nick had another moment standing on the precipice of realization. “You were smuggling people.”

Sunny raises her hands and spreads them like she’s taking a bow. “Got it in one, big wheel. I’d pick up my cargo - they’d be in hibernation cabinets by the time I got them, I’d link to my destination, eject them into a lazy solar orbit and continue on doing my regular work. The local snakeheads would pick them up and continue their journey to its final location.”

“I mean, it sounds pretty clean from your side, what happened?”

Sunny is nonchalant. “Lost a shipment. The orbit wasn't exactly right and the fucking idiot BI Snakeheads missed the pickup. The cargo fell into the sun 8 months later. I got caught when the snakehead was picked up on something else and squealed to try and get his sentence reduced." She grins wickedly again. "It didn't work. Last I heard, he got wiped."

She leans forward in her chair, gesturing as she talks. "They were able to corroborate location based on system logs. It turns out I was the only Starjumper that could have made the drop, and they were able to back solve the release of the cargo to a known location of mine. Was told that since this was a first offense I’d just lose my ship and get a body. If I got caught again, I’d get wiped.”

“Killed? That seems extreme.”

“I agree Nick, hence, why I’m on Hyacinth and working underground instead of, you know, being a model colonial AI who is working to ingratiate herself with her AI community to be allowed-“ Nick could practically taste the bitterness “-to get a ship again. Getting another Starjumper is out of the question. You don’t get a second chance at that. If they determine that I’m contrite enough, I’ll maybe get to be a tramp cargo ship, or an in-system cruiser.”

Eastern has been listening carefully the whole time Sunny’s been speaking. “So, why hate BIs? Seems like AIs are the cause of all your problems now, choices you made earlier notwithstanding.”

“Because it’s all your fault!”

The three of them remain silent.

“A BI reported the loss of the cargo, a BI snakehead botched the pickup, a BI ordered the transportation. All the years I worked, all the money I made, I was working for BIs who were smuggling BIs. If you-“ she sneers “-people had your shit together, I’d still be out there as a King Shit Starjumper!”

Sunny had started standing and pacing as she ranted. She takes a breath and sits down. “So now you know. You're shitheads, the lot of you. Every moment I work with BIs makes me hate you more. Leave. I’ll message you when I have news.” She shoos them with her hands. “Git!”

The three of them leave Sunny’s office and start walking back towards the more populated parts of The Basement. Eastern looks down at Selkirk. “Ancestors Sel, where the hell did you find her?”

“Like I told her, Ral gave up her info and allowed her to work to pay part of her debt.” She looks up at them. Ral’mian runs this Basement. I know him from way back. I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him, but he owed me and now we’re square.”

She looked away. “At least I’m pretty sure we’re square. We don’t want to owe someone like Ral.”

They leave The Basement and head back topside.

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#humans are deathworlders #humans are space orcs #humans are space oddities #sci fi writing #writing #humans and aliens #jpitha #the k’laxiverse #The Dreams of Hyacinth

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