#i think i remember the rocks where i found the slugs

[silassinclair]

It’s my first time requesting, so I’m sorry if you don’t understand my bad english ;-;

May I request a GN readerx Yandere Wild West Outlaw (my brain can’t remember his name) with a reader who sleeps anywhere on anything? There will be one time this man has seen his darling somehow out of the ropes and is sleeping on the roof.

I understand if you don’t wanna do this request, but if you do it thank you from the bottom of my heart! <3

Always take care and take a break when needed~

This request is so silly I have to do it. Also your english is great, don’t sweat it!!

Yandere Wild West Outlaw x Sleepy Reader

CW// Nothing, just wholesomeness

Masterlist

It’s yours and Maddox’s first night together after he took you from your home. You two are camping out in the desert by a cave. There’s a small fire lit and Maddox’s horse Jasper is munching on some carrots.

But it’s been awfully quiet, the outlaw thinks. Why is it so quiet?

He realizes it’s because of you! You’re usually always thrashing and screaming at him and now you aren’t!

He also realizes that you’re no where to be found… It makes him panic slightly. He shoots up from where he’s sat and he looks around the camp. The desert is dangerous, what if you got stung by a scorpion or bit by a rattlesnake!?

“You come out from where you’re hidin’ missy! Or I outta shoot-”

He nearly trips and falls flat on his face. Looking down he sees you taking a dirt nap, quite literally in the dirt. How did you get so far away from camp? Did you sleep walk? Fall asleep while trying to escape? Whatever it is Maddox doesn’t give a damn, he’s glad he found you.

“You’re a dumb little thing. What would you do without me?”

From this moment onward Maddox sees a repeating pattern. You sleep anytime, anywhere. And on occasion you can even “teleport”. He thought about calling a priest to perform an exorcism on you once.

“Sweet Jesus, this ain’t possible… How’d ya get out here!?”

When you fall asleep while on his horse he sits you in front of him so he can act as a back rest. He doesn’t want you falling off now.

Loves it when you fall asleep on him. You’re so vulnerable when you’re asleep like this. He can touch you without getting yelled at or smacked. So he takes advantage of it.

Combs his hands through your pretty locks of hair and caresses your plush cheeks. Sometimes when you squirm in your sleep from a nightmare he shushes you like a baby and rocks you back and forth.

Stays by your side from now on when you’re asleep after… the incident.

The Incident:

After over a week of being on horseback and foot Maddox finds an old house for them to settle in temporarily. It’s a cute house with victorian architecture. It’s definitely abandoned and all the owner’s belongings are still there. They most likely fled due to the Native American tribe near by but Maddox isn’t afraid of them. He actually gets along with the tribesmen better than the whites who hate him for being half American and half Mexican.

“This place is nice. It almost the same size as my old home.” Y/n mutters as she admires the decor. But her eyes feel heavy, she needs to sleep. This past week has been exhausting.

Maddox notices how worn out she is. She’ll be no good to him if she’s a mopey, tired slug. So he brings her upstairs to the main bedroom. The bed is dusty but it’ll have to make do.

“You’ll sleep here sweetheart. But I’m gonna have to tie ya’ down. I don’t need ya’ escaping now.” Maddox ties a rope from the bed post to her ankle.

Y/n doesn’t even bother to yell or fight back from being tied down. She just falls asleep immediately like a hibernating bear. When she’s asleep Maddox unpacks some supplies down in the living room. He also cooks up a can of beans and digs in.

It’s quiet. All his life he’s been alone, but he’ll never admit he feels lonely. He’s never had anyone to trust or rely on. Most nights he’ll sleep under the stars and talk to Jasper. But he’s a horse so talking to him is one sided.

Even though Y/n is sleeping just upstairs he misses her. Misses her snarky comments, creative insults, and the way she smacks his chest when he gets too close.

“What are you doing to me woman..” The outlaw mutters to himself as he trudges himself up the creaky wooden stairs. He’s in front of her door and he opens it slowly, peeking his head in. But then he slams it open when he sees she’s gone.

“Y/n?” He shouts, looking around the room and searching every corner. She’s missing again! Maddox runs like a cat out of water as he searches the whole house. What if she got hurt!? He could never live with himself.

He kicks open the front door and looks around the property. What if the tribe found her and thought she was a threat? Every negative outcome of what could happen to her comes to his mind. Getting eaten by a coyote is a possibility too.

Maddox takes his hat off and grips his black hair.

“FUCK!” He shouts and kicks the dirt on the ground, the cloud of brown blowing with the wind. Maddox walks back to the house in defeat where he tells Jasper that Y/n’s gone, and she is never coming back. But the horse only exhales loudly and shakes his head back and forth.

“She’s gone buddy. I know you liked her but she’s probably dead in a fuckin’ ditch somewhere!” The man snaps.

Jasper slams his front leg down and neighs loudly. His nose is pointed up towards the house.

“What are ya’ on about you?” Jasper never behaved like this before unless he wanted to try and tell him something. He’s a smart horse, so any sound or motion me makes is usually when he tries to convey a message.

Maddox looks up at the house where Jasper is looking and squints his eyes. He puts his hat back on to cover his eyes from the beating sun. Looking closer he sees a familiar head of h/c hair on the roof!

“Y/n!?” Maddox says in disbelief. How the fuck did she get up there!? Does she even know she’s up there? Probably not.

“Shit boy, what do we do?” He turns to his horse. Jasper neighs louder and Maddox looks back up and sees that she’s about to fall off the roof!

“SHIT!”

Y/n turns in her sleep and falls off the roof. Maddox feels his heart drop and he breaks off into a sprint. Just before she hits the ground he catches her, making them both fall to the dirt.

“Y-You?” Y/n wakes up and sees she’s outside and that god forsaken outlaw is beneath her. His head is under her dress making her squeal and scramble away.

“W-What in the hell!? What do you think you’re doing? Why am I outside and why was your ugly mug up my dress!?”

Maddox groans and rubs his head. He turns to her with a glare and grabs her wrist, pulling her up.

“I ain’t ever takin’ my eye off you again! You ought to be a witch or somethin’!”

From that moment onward Maddox sleeps next to Y/n in a bone crushing cuddle. When he feels her move in the slightest he wakes up and tightens his hold. No way in hell will he let something like that happen again.

#yandere #yandere x reader #x reader #yandere imagines #yandere x you #yandere oc #yandere oc x reader #obsession #maddox graves #western #cowboy #request #reqs open

[thepremedthatwrites]

On the House (pt. 3)

Summary: The Pevensies have decided to run a cafe together, a cafe that the reader has come to frequent every Saturday like clockwork. As time goes on, it becomes evident that a certain blond has started to catch feelings for the reader.

requested by @theonottsbxtch

part 1 | part 2

(Y/n) found her job boring. This was alarming because she had never felt this way before. In fact, she loved her job. The publishing industry was one of stiff competition and having a passion for the work was the bare minimum in order to be considered a competitive candidate. She loved being able to witness the process of a book being made, especially the beginning when the authors she worked with pulsated with excitement, knowing their life’s work was finally going to be revealed to the masses.

But she couldn’t focus on her work anymore. Instead, she went through the motions, unable to focus on anything except for the anticipation of the weekend. All her mind was set on was one thing. The Lamppost Cafe. Every Saturday all she could think about was going into the cafe at one o’clock and getting to see Peter again. Some days she even considered going earlier than her regular time but stopped herself, not wanting to see desperate in any way.

Ever since she learned his name, she kept repeating it to herself. She would say it to herself while making her morning coffee, or while she was showering. It was like a mantra for her. She even found herself waking up sometimes with the name still fresh on the tip of her tongue. As if she expected him to be laying on the other side of the bed, responding to her call. 

Saturday came at an agonizing pace but soon enough she was grabbing her bag and book before heading for the cafe. After slugging through the week, the walk energized her. She felt the wind blow through her hair as she went, her eyes wide with excitement as the cafe came into view. She didn’t hesitate to walk up to the register where Peter was waiting for her. She wasn’t sure if she imagined it, but it felt as though his smile brightened as she neared him. “The usual?” he asked, already ringing her up.

“How did you know?” (y/n) joked, flashing him a smile. There was a pause as their eyes caught each other. He broke first, looking down at the register to read out the total. (Y/n) blinked a few times, as if it would flush away the pink that had started to grow on her cheeks. She began digging through her bag to find her wallet. “Actually, you know what, it’s on the house.”

“Really?” (y/n) responded. Behind Peter, she could his siblings pausing what they were doing and stealing quick glances at them. “Is there a certain sale today?”

“Oh no, it’s just you always come here. Think of it as us showing you our thanks for your support.” He let out a chuckle before flashing a quick smile. He was now rocking his weight back and forth and his eyes were back on the register. 

“Oh, that’s so sweet of you guys!” she responded, a bright smile growing on her face. “Thank you so much!” Peter looked up at her and she could tell his face was a shade redder than it had been when she first entered the cafe. 

“It’s my pleasure,” he said. (Y/n) let out a small giggle, remembering the first time he had said the strange phrase when he had brought out her order. “I’ll bring over your order once it’s ready.” She nodded before making her way to her usual table. 

As Peter walked towards the back, Susan said in a low voice, “I hope you’re planning on covering the cost for your girlfriend.” He rolled his eyes.

“Yeah whatever. And she’s not my girlfriend.”

“Yet,” Lucy added, chuckling as she started to steep the tea. Peter only scoffed before stealing a glance at (y/n). He hoped his face felt much more warm than it actually looked. If she had noticed his blush, he wouldn’t be able to face her again. How unprofessional it would be for a customer to believe he was flirting with her! Of course, he was only offering free food and drink because she was a regular. It wasn’t anything with romantic undertones. At least that’s what he would say if his siblings questioned him. But deep down, he knew the truth. He knew that he spent a bit longer getting ready on Saturdays and that as the clock neared one o’clock he took his place at the register even though he hated dealing with the confusing machinery that somehow always malfunctioned when he used it. 

“Well, are you going to give your girlfriend her order?” Susan asked, already putting the cup and plate into his hands.

“Quit calling her that, will you?” 

“Oh, do you prefer future Mrs. Pevensie?” 

“Very funny.” Peter rolled his eyes. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to do my job.” He walked away before his sister could add one last remark. As he neared (y/n)’s table, he could feel his face warming once again. “Here’s your order,” he said, placing the stuff down onto the table.

“Oh, thank you,” (y/n) replied, putting down her book. 

“Haven’t you already read that one?” Peter felt his face become even warmer as he said that, realizing he had given away the fact that he had been watching her for the past few weeks. She let out a small laugh and it was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard. 

“I fear I don’t have many books, so I cycle through them constantly.”

“Well, there’s a bookstore right down the street. Their prices are pretty low and they have a pretty wide variety of books.”

“Oh that’s sound wonderful. I should definitely check them out some time.” There was a pause. The girl looked up at him, the smile she was wearing turning somewhat playful. “This is the part where you suggest taking me to the bookstore.” She wasn’t sure where the confidence had come from but she was glad she said it as a wide smile grew on Peter’s face.

“I’m off tomorrow, does that work?”

“Perfect. We’ll meet here?”

“Is one o’clock good for you?”

“It always is,” she replied, smiling into her cup of tea as she took a long sip, the honey warming her throat on the way down.

#peter pevensie x reader #peter pevensie #narnia fanfiction #narnia #peter pevensie imagine #peter x reader #peter pevensie fanfic #the chronicles of narnia #peter pevensie preference #high king peter #peter pevensie one shot #high king peter the magnificent #susan pevensie #edmund pevensie #lucy pevensie

[fallenclan]

"Is she okay?" Salmonskip whispers, slightly adjusting her stance. Her tail curls around Moosefall's.

(An admittedly bold gesture. But he hasn't shrugged her off yet, so she assumes it as a win.)

Fernslug has been staring at the wall since the sun was dipping into the valleys of the mountains, her green eyes furrowed at something that Salmonskip and Moosefall were oblivious to.

"She does that sometimes," Moosefall says. "She's probably just thinking."

"Thinking about what?"

Curse her inquisitive nature. The impulsive desire to immediately need to know everything everyone else knew was her downfall.

"The war?" Moosefall shrugs. "Maybe the slug that Mudsplash found the other day."

Ah, right. Mudsplash found a nicely colored slug, showed it to Fernslug, and the way that the black and white she-cat had visibly brightened at it was permanently engraved in her mind.

And also, the war. Supposedly the first in Fallenclan's history. Maplestar had ordered a permanent guard on every entrance and exit to the camp, and that's what She and Moosefall were watching the entrance at three in the morning for. Crowflame was (not very discreetly) eyeing the secret tunnel that everyone uses to sneak out.

The one that Moosefall used to sneak out.

The silence stretches between them. For all her loudmouthed tendencies, Salmonskip couldn't think of anything to say.

"I think it's stressing mom out," Moosefall quietly says. "She's nervous. I caught her biting her claws earlier."

Inwardly, Salmonskip knows what Moosefall tells her when the moon falls into the valleys and the sun rises from the flat plains beyond is never meant to be heard by anyone else.

Nobody else would hear of the sleepless nights he had as an apprentice, constantly waking up because it was cold and remembering that Shrewkit wasn't there curled into him anymore. That he kept a shiny pebble that Shrewkit once gifted him in his nest, tucked under moss where nobody would see it if they didn't look.

Nobody else knew of exactly what happened in those few days where he was missing. She doesn't think she knows the whole story either, but she knows when to drop a subject.

She's seen the longing glint in his eye when they go running in the early hours of dawn. When he stops at the same flat stretch of rock and stares at the horizon, looking for something he could never find.

"So," she says, clearing her throat. "Fernslug is still staring at the wall. Do we need to do something about that, or...?"

Moosefall sighs, then nods. "Fernslug! There's a banana slug over here!"

Low and behold, a tiny, gray slug was creeping up the smooth rock that Moosefall and her were definitely not leaning against, blinking sleep from their eyes.

Fernslug's attention instantly shifted. She bounded over like she hadn't been staring at the wall for 5 hours.

"That's a gray garden slug! It's a species of small air-breathing land slug, a terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusc. It's super important in the forests. But banana slugs are usually bright yellow and you're really not supposed to touch them! They can be ..."

Fernslug trails off into barely coherent infodumping, and suddenly every species of slug that lives in the territories has taken up a large chunk of her brain.

Oh well, at least she's too distracted to see that Salmonskip has started leaning on Moosefall.

-🍭 (dear GOD this got long. erm anyway i don't play favorites. shoves moosefall and salmonskip and fernslug into a tree)

I LOVE THIS AUGHHHHH

#fallenasks #fallenfic #lollipop anon #your writing. mwah

[chupenguin]

I'll be the man my father never was (extra)

[Remember the dadzai fic being in hiatus?? Well, here's a small part of what I had planned, posting it for @imsofrancey bday!! Have an amazing day!!!]

December 2022

Nights like this are getting less usual with each passing day. 

Now, Dazai doesn’t call for a helping hand, only so he can drink himself to sleep in a bar down the streets of his city. 

Adam is right about what think, he should burn the desire to drink and drown with something else that soothes his mind and, with a little try and error, walking around was found to be the answer.

So, Dazai becomes an elderly man, strolling around the city with hands in his pockets. His fingers twitch, aching to hold a cigarette, but he pushes that to the back of his mind as well, and keeps walking in the dead of the cold winter night.

Would you stay for Christmas? Chuuya asked two days ago.

We’ll leave once winter is over.

Like some kind of princess trapped inside the hut in the goods, or a pirate condemned to take refuge in the port during the months the ocean was ungovernable.

Their tug of war of offering Dazai and Atsushi to stay and not being able to leave, had been going on since September and maybe, by this time, Dazai didn’t really wanted to keep playing.

It’s late when Dazai comes back from his walk, later than he had planned when he told Chuuya about heading out for a while. He needed to clear his mind, to walk around an empty city, thinking about nothing and allowing his feet to take him wherever his body wanted.  

With all the complaints he had at first, Dazai is glad when he opens the door of Chuuya’s apartment. If he was still alone, he would have paced around the house, digging his nails too deep into brittle skin as he tried to ground himself. With Chuuya home, he can leave for a walk, knowing that Atsushi is safe and sound, without having to call and bother one of his friends or coworkers. 

Balancing everything is easier now, and Dazai knows that without Chuuya here, his bad habits would knock on the door much louder than they already do.  

“Chuuya?” he calls softly, but the apartment remains silent as he takes off his shoes. Three pairs of shoes align by the door now. Atsushi's ones are more for the show than anything but, in these past weeks, Chuuya had bought enough baby shoes to fill a room.

“He’ll walk soon”, he said last night. “I can feel it.”

The tiniest doc martens Dazai had ever seen seem to be his favorite ones, and that are the ones in the genkan. Maybe Atsushi and Chuuya went for a walk too, sooner in the afternoon. 

There is no sign of Chuuya in the living room or in the kitchen. Maybe for once he dragged himself to bed early, not waiting for Dazai to come back. He doesn’t blame him, work and taking care of both Atsushi and Dazai, is a draining thing to do. Not even Chuuya and all his energy can keep the rhythm with the kind of life they have now. 

“You’re asleep?” The door to Chuuya –their– room opens, just to find an empty bed, and that’s strange, because there’s no sound coming from the bathroom, and the small balcony door is closed. “Slug?” 

Chuuya may be short, but not enough to disappear inside the apartment. And much less left it unattended. The only ones in the room are the cats, sleeping peacefully in an empty bed. 

“Did you fall asleep in the brat’s room?” opening the door slowly, in case the kid is sleeping, Dazai walks into the next room. Feet light against the carpet and tiptoeing around toys. “Chuuya?” 

He asks again, because Chuuya is not occupying the rocking chair.  

“Where are-,” oh. “Hi...” 

Dazai gets his answer when he approaches the crib to see Atsushi.  

“Found you.” 

He should laugh at the vision of Chuuya fitting inside a crib, but instead of that Dazai’s heart melts with affection at the way his partner embraces Atsushi. The kid is holding onto the adult´s shirt, melted in his arms in a sleep that looks deep and comfortable. 

Atsushi has a tendency to fall asleep holding onto something. 

And a tendency for waking up when someone makes him let go from that something. 

Dazai can see it, Chuuya rooking the baby in his arms until he was quietly snoring, and climbing into the crib when he realized that he wasn’t letting go of his finger. Anything to not wake him up. 

“Someone’s back is not going to be happy about this tomorrow,” short and small and everything, Chuuya is curled into a pretzel to fit inside the crib. “Sleep well dear.”

And then, he heads for his own spot in Chuuya’s cold bed. 

A loud sound blasting through the baby monitor wakes him up a few hours later. Dazai opens his eyes and jumps from the bed so quickly that he’s not even half awake when he bursts Atsushi’s door open, rushing into the room like a hurricane. 

He freezes in the spot the moment he realizes what’s happening. 

It wasn’t a cry that woke him up, no. 

It was a laugh, crystal clear and filling the room in a way that makes the static in Dazai’s brain go away.  

Well, more like two laughs. 

Atushi's giggles, clear and happy and so full of life, make a strange contrast with Chuuya laugh, deep and a little ugly. But Dazai always found the way Chuuya laughed charming, even if it was loud and a little bit crooked.  

They're still sitting inside the crib, Atsushi on Chuuya's lap, who keeps ticking the baby's sides, making him burst with happy noises for the first time in the morning. 

“Oh, you’re awake,” Chuuya says, looking at him from his spot in the crib. Dazai expected to find him ashamed or blushing because of it, but he looks pretty content with his sleeping spot of choice for the night. “Morning.” 

“Good morning...” 

“Say morning to dad Sushi,” and he grabs Atsushi's little arm, making the kid wave at him. 

“Papa!” Atsushi makes grabby hands at him and Dazai’s legs finally answer, walking toward the crib so he can pick up the kid. “Papa!” 

“Papa looks weird,” Chuuya jumps out of the crib without problem, stretching like a cat in the sun. Dazai decided to ignore the cracking sound Chuuya’s bones make, too focused on the sight for a few seconds before that. “Everything is fine?” 

Chuuya’s hand rests on his arm, warm and secure. It's not a firm grip, he just places them against his cold skin, and Dazai shivers at the touch. Or maybe, it’s the soft look in Chuuya's eyes that makes him shiver. 

With morning light sneaking in the room, Chuuya’s eyes are magical, light dancing over the mismatched colors. He looks happy and relaxed, and, when he tiptoes to kiss the corner of Dazai’s mouth, Dazai indulges. 

“A little under the weather, that’s all,” there’s no point in lying to Chuuya and, as much as seeing him and the kid together cheering him up, last night's episode has Dazai trying to find balance once more. “The walk helped.” 

“I’m glad then,” glad that it wasn’t a bottle of sake or a razor that did the trick. Glad Dazai was learning how to deal with everything in healthier ways. “Breakfast?” 

He doesn’t push it, Chuuya doesn’t ask when Dazai doesn’t tell. 

Chuuya bops Atsushi’s nose, who laughs again, trying to reach for him again. 

“No buddy, you already stole him from me the whole night,” Atsushi is so easy to distract, the moment he talks, his attention is back in Dazai. “Stealing other’s man from such a young age, what are we going to so with you?” 

Dazai nuzzles his nose against Atsushi’s chubby cheek, who keeps laughing. He's such a happy kid, easy going and bright. He's everything Dazai wasn’t when he was younger, he hopes he can keep growing up like this. 

“I wonder who he learnt that from,” Chuuya says, still on his tiptoes. “Sounds like a classic Mackerell move.” 

“I never stole anyone’s girl,” he protests, pouting a breath away from Chuuya’s mouth. “And I didn’t steal you either.” 

Chuuya came to him in his own stupid accord. 

“You’re lucky my taste in men is as bad as your posture,” and then, with a last impulse, he finally gives Dazai a proper good morning kiss. Chuuya's lips are warm against his, and Dazai can feel the small smile that takes shape against his mouth. “You need to shave.” 

Chuuya complains with their lips still pressed together and, in revenge, Dazai bites his bottom lip. 

“Only if you do it for me.” 

#bsd #bungou stray dogs #chuuya nakahara #dazai osamu #skk #soukoku #fanfic #chu writes #atsushi nakajima #dadzai #dazai dad au #everyone say Li happy bday

[rainbowangel110]

My little sister watches Toh saga

We uh... got through episodes 8-11 so a bit to cover!

Episode 8

Starting off the episode with Hooty. She was already invested.

"I'll never find a way into Amity's heart!" cue Rock face from here

So uh as much as she loves Hooty she still was weird out by him... swallowing King

"What is Hooty eating???" Cuz King was covered in some stuff.

Oh shit this is puberty talk I thought in a panic

Anyways!!! Bug dance was funny. She was re repeating DON'T YOU TALK ABOUT MY MOTHER for a while.

"HOW BIG IS THAT SYRINGE??"

Voice powers had her hyped actually, she was all "What is that?? HE HAS POWERS NOW???" Cute

Onto Eda!!

"I want those cookies." I am not letting you get roofied by a baked good, kid >:(

Oh she was not ready for Owlbeast to attack Dell lemme tell ya.

We got the Archivists part of the Owl Beasts memories and I popped off

She really loved the segment where Eda talked to the Owl Beast.

"I want a plush of it."

"THAT'S SO PRETTY!!!!" in reference to the ending of the dream sequence

SAY HI TO HARPY EDA KID :DDDD

"SHE CAN DO THAT???"

Onto the Lumity segment (y'all were waiting weren't you)

"Stop blushing so much oh my gosh." "They do that a lot trust me."

She was all "ohh nooo" at the reveal of the Tunnel of Love and I was dying inside.

"Amity calm down oh my gosh!" I am in tears rn

she was sooooo hyped at the part where King used his powers again

Little tiny gasp at the Lumity part immediately after

the part where Luz was dancing around asking Amity out she was YELLING

"JUST DO IT ALREADY!!!"

Hooty receives a letter from someone

"KING'S DAD!?!?" no

Episode 9

She has been obsessed with what Belos looks like under the mask ever since we first saw him

"Oh man sure hope Little Rascal doesn't get caught...." "Why?" "... Remember how Belos eat-" "NO I DON'T WANT TO-" (Doing just fine here-)

"That's what he looks like?? ... ew what's the green for??"

I am freaking out right now kid, don't ask me

I paused so much because wow implications when you know the full story are REAL

"What did you think of that conversation (. ❛ ᴗ ❛.)" "... Creepy." GIRL SAME

"Is that-" "Dragon Ball Z? Yes" (knows through memes okay?)

"Oh what happened to her??" "She's sick :("

we will now skip over a bunch of stuff nothing too exciting happened here tbh

I am pausing so much during this episode and it's annoying her (YOU WILL UNDERSTAND I PROMISE!!!)

"Lotta projection going on here." "... what?"

Had to explain some stuff about the convo between Hunter and Amity over the Tamagotchi (give her a moment)

"Oh. That's not good." "It really isn't."

Don't mind me just sobbing inside at every Hunter/Flapjack interaction.

Was so so so worried for Owlbert there.

"It's in the key?!?" Yeah uh so here we are :)))))

She was so entranced with the animation and so was I (with internal screaming though)

"SHE CRACKED IT!!!"

"Mushroom Luz."

Was awwing over Flapjack and Hunter at the end (don't mind me just... gonna go over here and AUGHHHHH)

Episode 10

"Who is that?? How is she in the mirror"

"Weird door."

In between is really interesting actually

"IT'S!!! HER!! THE SLUG!!"

Again I found her watching this show at S3E1 at the intro part (all she remembers was Hunter and Vee thank god) so she popped off here.

"She's cute. I like her."

*pause* "Okay so you see that?" *points at Gravesfield logo* "Remember that." "okay..."

"Oh and those two." *points at the the Wittebanes* "Okay I will sheesh 🙄" /lh

She will not

"The basilisks remember? "OH YEAH-"

Not much from her until the rain sequence.

"HOW IS SHE HOLDING HER??" girl don't sweat it, cry with me instead :)

"I feel bad for Camila.' SAME

Episode 11

Honestly not much happened here with her so uhhh....

Biggest take away for her though

"CAT COVEN PERSON!!!" (coven scout)

"King read her diary-"

#the owl house #just posting #little sister saga

[rogueshadeaux]

Chapter Twenty-One — Spectral

It wasn’t just the light that made her shine, though; it was her, the same person in those pictures with Dad, no gray to her skin or sullen cheeks or bones that protruded just a bit too much to be healthy. Her hair was even back to fully pink, brushed out of her face as those eyes, Brent’s eyes, met mine, turning soft.  “Mom?”

5.8k words | 18 min read time | TRIGGER WARNINGS: unreality vibes if those freak you out

⚠ AUTHORS NOTE: image credit to Withoutafuss on deviantart. Full (and absolutely beautiful) version here

The scent faded in first. 

It smelled like the beauty of nature. Like sunlight bouncing off warmed rocks and fertile soil. There was something flowery there I couldn’t name if you asked me; usually flowers came with pollen, and pollen would stock up my nose. But not this time. 

There wasn’t any sound, which should have scared me. No birds or crickets or the scream of cicadas. There was a breeze, but even then it barely whispered. I shifted slightly, and something standing against me tickled my nose. That’s what got me to spring up from my slumber, jolting up straight in place with a gasp. 

I was lying in a field of barley, hidden away in its heart by the tall stalks until I stood. The golden grain stretched as far as I could see, all the way to the horizon and probably past it, a beautiful offset to the clear blue sky. There was light, but…I couldn’t find the sun, no matter how hard I looked. Skyline to skyline was alight, but void. Just blue. Where the hell was I?

I fought to remember what happened. How I got here. Arguably, my biggest question at first was where the fuck was the sun, but that melted away when I realized I…I didn’t know where I was. Why I was here. Wasn’t I at the Longhouse a bit ago? How did…

Barley doesn’t grow in winter. It’s a spring crop. Wasn’t it…it was Christmas Eve, right? What was today? There was no snow, it wasn’t cold. I wasn’t even dressed for cold weather — I wasn’t sure if this counted as being dressed at all. 

Water was my dress, as blue as the ocean with the white froth of sea foam billowing at its trims. The wet crept up my chest until it found a comfortable spot to sink into my skin, and didn’t stop its soft ebbs as I stood — the angle of its tide just shifted. 

“What the fuck?” I whispered under my breath, looking around. There was literally nothing, nothing, but a field of gold, stretching until the horizon curved away. I didn’t know it was possible to be freaked out by wide open spaces, but I definitely began to hyperventilate a bit as I spun in place, looking for something, anything that indicated a difference. By my third spin, I wasn’t even sure which way I was originally facing. 

Everything was peaceful, calm, and entirely uncanny. I wracked my brain, trying to think of what happened or how I got here but got nothing but static in response with the briefest of flashes; waves, shattered wood, Brent diving down from a cloudy sky. 

“Brent?” I called out, my voice carrying away with the soft breeze that made the grain ripple like an ocean. He’d have to have a better idea of what was going on, right? I hope so, ‘cause I sure the fuck did not. 

Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to start walking. Arguably, I should have stayed put — it would have made me easier to find. But I couldn’t stay here in the middle of this giant field, not when there was nothing else to go by. I couldn’t even depend on the sun for a directional point, the fucking thing was missing — but I couldn’t leave without leaving behind a hint or something of the sort. 

The water was slow to call up, which was concerning. It slugged onto my arms, moved lazily around my wrists as I forced the streams on my skin down to my hands. I had to leave something behind for Brent, probably something he’d see from the sky. I turned back to the divot in the grain where my sleeping form pressed down the barley and pushed the water out of my hands into the depression, pushing and refining and pinching until there was a liquid version of the Conduit emblem in its crater with an arrow pointing towards my right. 

And once I was satisfied with how it looked, once I was sure he’d see the glint of the two-headed eagle as it reflected rays from a nonexistent source, I turned in the direction of the arrow and started walking. 

You don’t realize how big the world is until you try to trek it on foot — barefoot, I realized. Where the hell were my boots, my leather jacket? I could remember searching through Dad’s closet and pulling out a jacket of his with a little Seattle 138 patch on its arm, and that was gone too. My hair wasn’t even pulled back anymore. 

The barley stretched for miles and I walked each one for hours, maybe even days, if those existed anymore. I’d have to pause, sit and rest for a while, but nothing changed outwardly — including my energy. I was worried time and space and whatever disappeared with the sun, that this was some weird sort of purgatory I was meant to be trapped in to walk forever like some kind of remixed Sisyphis when the sky began to change. The blue lightened a bit, and turned yellow at the edges before pink and purple overtook the entire sky in a way I’d never seen before, sunset triggering throughout its entirety as something dark grew on the horizon. 

It grew taller with each step, hard to really tell what it was in the bright contrast of the sky and the depth of the distance until I was nearly on it. The golden grain disappeared and was replaced with soft dewy grass, running like a border between the fields behind me and the border of trees. It looked like the Clatsop State Forest in Oregon. It looked like home. 

We’d go hiking in forests like this a lot when I was younger — It was one of Dad’s favorite ways to get us out of the house and away from the world. I paused just in front of a toppled, moss-covered trunk to look out at the field behind me, at the trail I walked into it and the sky that was beginning to shift from purple to black even without the sun. I’d walked for what felt like forever, and yet…I wasn’t tired. The soles of my feet weren’t even red, I’d realized when I sat on the ground and crossed them. The journey was barely even registering in my mind as long, already compacting in that disassociated way when you dream, and I decided that had to be what was happening right now. Right? This had to be a dream. A weird one, but a dream. Maybe I fell asleep at Betty’s?

I leaned against the log behind me and watched the purple sky bruise, stars breaking out of the murk unnaturally. Everything was peaceful and quiet and serene but oh so wrong. Stars wouldn’t appear in the sky until I looked away from a point and then glanced back, the lights twinkling like they’d been there the whole time. Nothing made sense! I tried to think about how I could have gotten somewhere like here. There was…Brent had wings, so we’d gone outside at some point. Wood chips…did the Akomish Reservation have a park? Did we sneak away to play at a park? Was I asleep in a tube slide again?

I tried to force myself awake. Pinching the thigh, slapping the face, jumping, counting, all of the tricks people say to use when you want to get out of a nightmare — none of them worked, but they all felt real. This couldn’t be real, right? 

Just to test, though, I filled my hands with water and dunked my face in the cold, trying to see if that’d work. 

It didn’t, but the bite of the cold came with new flashes; frosting arms, frozen ribs. Something twinged hard in my back and suddenly I was reliving those last moments of the true before. Before I froze over, before I fainted in the silt of the Sound. 

I jolted up from my spot, freaking out. Did Archangel get me? I mean, this place had no fucking sun, no moon — just aurora borealis that switched on unnaturally like someone turned on a night light as I dove into the woods, running away from where I was first found. I didn’t know what was going on or where I was. All I knew was something was wrong, and I needed to both get away from where I was left and find out more. 

I wasn’t tired yet. My body felt a lot like how it did when I was suspended in the Sound a while ago; rested yet ready, able to vault over fallen logs and around foliage that scratched at my exposed legs but left no marks. I know, I checked. The slice in my side was gone and while I couldn’t see back there, I didn’t feel any holes left behind by the icicles. Could this have been the long con, that grand plan Augustine was intent on achieving? Weaken Dad for a while so they could move him to some weird facility where the stars seemed to shine a bit too bright — and since I got hurt instead, they decided I’d be the next safest bet into luring out Dad? They’d already tried it once with those Akurans and knew it’d work. I must be their ransom. 

As I ran, I caught more of those brief flashes of life that happened before I went unconscious; there were soldiers that could wield ice, a dozen of them, maybe even more! Were they transferred powers like Augustine’s old footsoldiers, the DUP? She’d know how to do something like that, right? History class only told us the government had the capability to activate inactive Conduits and transfer over an artificial power — nothing beyond that. Couldn’t imagine why they wouldn’t want a bunch of kids to know how to become Conduits. It’s a mystery. 

But that confirmed enough to me; Archangel were making their own soldiers. Maybe not concrete-wielding DUP, but how far could they go? Dozens of troops wielding dozens of different kinds of powers wasn’t exactly a nice idea. Who’s to say they wouldn’t find something stronger than ice or concrete? Who’s to say they weren’t waiting to do something to me?

I had to find the edge of this…whatever it was. Maybe I could break out or escape through an HVAC vent or something. 

Dad was nearly there. I saw him running atop the Sound at the speed of sound, ahead of some…god, it looked like a knight with wings chasing down a thousand demons that ran from hell. Were they chasing him? Was that the Archangel?

Either way, the only thing that mattered was that he had been close, last I saw him. He wouldn’t leave me behind, he wouldn’t have let Archangel take me without being right there ready to get me back out. I had to get to him, try and meet him halfway. 

The forest was beautiful. When the green and the blue of the northern lights that were too far south lit up the canopy, it bled through the leaves in a way that bathed the entire woods in this soft blue glow that reminded me of enchantments. Like this wasn’t some farce built up by a bunch of psychos but an actual border between the real world and something even more magical. Dad used to read me Narnia when I was little, it was our thing; he’d read through a chapter and I’d always return home from school the next day with a new drawing based on it and a complaint from my teacher that I wasn’t paying attention in class. I loved the idea of the Woods Between the Worlds, of a forest full of magic and portals that could transport you everywhere and anywhere so long as you stepped in a puddle. 

Now, I wanted absolutely nothing to do with such a nexus. 

So I ran, the billowed skirt of my watery dress lagging behind me like the splash of choppy waters off of a boat’s body. That was another thing that worried me; where were my clothes? If Archangel got me, that simply meant they had access to me, all of me, and while the worst of what that could mean definitely flew through my head, my biggest worry was that they took a part of me I’d never be able to regain. The copy of my Conduit gene. 

I wasn’t getting tired, but I was getting winded — eventually I leaned against a pine tree, practically collapsing into it, gasping loudly. The woods were worse than the barley fields! I wasn’t sure if I was still running straight, if I was facing the direction I was originally or just spinning in circles. It sure felt like I wasn’t making progress. 

I leaned my forehead against the bite of the bark, scraping my head against the splintering bits just to see if I’d wake up from this nightmare, if I was wrong and just in some delusional stage of sleep paralysis. Of course, it didn’t work though. 

I lifted my head and looked around, already unsure of where I came from. I was in the middle of debating whether I should go forward or just lay down and cry in frustration when I heard…something. Not an owl or a wolf or any of the other scary things that usually prowl at night. It had an electrical patter to it, a chirping noise that sounded all too familiar as a streak of neon pink shot off between some firs far ahead, its illumination barely reaching me. 

“Dad?” I called, shouting, “Dad!” louder when the pink dissipated into the dark of the woods. He was so far, he couldn’t hear me — if he was going faster than the speed of sound, would he even be able to? 

I didn’t care. All I cared about was following him, making sure none of this was a night terror…or worse. 

I was back to running, shooting off parallel to where I saw Dad run. The worst part about his speed was it left behind nothing more to go by than an imprint on the back of my eyelids, guided by that and faith more than anything. I called his name as I ran, breathless begging for him to suddenly shoot in front of me and reassure me that nothing was bad enough that he couldn’t fix. That he was there, he was going to get me out of here, and that everything was going to make sense. That everything was going to be okay. 

I didn’t realize I was nearing the end of the thicket until I burst out of it, nearly tripping over a huge rock that jutted out of the ground in front of me. I was entering a quarry of some sort, only not for regular stone; slabs of translucent crystals laid everywhere, giant geodes cracked in half and lining out the trail down into an open pit. 

It was breathtaking; the shine of the northern lights bounced around in their natural lapidary and escaped out of each corner, bathing the spiral trail deeper into the pit in a reflected green light. Everything rippled down there like sunlight did underwater, mesmerizing me as I fell deeper into the unoccupied trench until I reached the shaft opening for its underground. 

“Dad?” I called out into the entrance, my voice bouncing around a thousand times as it crawled deep into the earth. This was the direction he ran — but to be fair, he could have changed course and I wouldn’t have seen it. I definitely wasn’t sure that he’d go into the cave without a cause.

But if he was looking for me, missed me in the woods, and couldn’t find me anywhere else above surface, he’d look underground next. It was the only place I could think he’d be. 

Inside was illuminated by gas lit lanterns that bathed the burrowed cave in a soft amber glow, the crystals in the walls absorbing the flame and centering its shine, giving off their own glints. There weren’t stalactites — they were the ends of long white crystals all positioned like teeth. In fact, looking at them made something new flash in my mind; Brooke Augustine hiding behind the maw of some giant beast, smirking. Augustine — wasn’t she in Curdun Cay? How’d she get out? 

I nabbed one of the lanterns from a hook in the wall as the trail into the quarry dove deeper. Would Archangel be able to make something like this, something so big not only above ground, but under it? Why would they even be digging in the first place? I mean, unless this was all some elaborate set of some sort, then good for them, it looked great — but just…why? 

God, I needed Dad. 

The ramp dove deeper and deeper, curved in a spiral that left me feeling dizzy. How long had I been walking? That weird feeling was back, already compacting time into something smaller and easier to manage and making me feel like everything was shorter than it really was. I called out Dad’s name a few times as I descended, each step leaving me feeling like I made a wrong choice. I should have stayed above surface, Dad wouldn’t have gone diving in a hole to look for me! Not without a good reason to come looking here — and I hadn’t given him one. I didn’t even leave a little sign I was in here. 

I was about to turn back and climb up the ramp again when light, more light than what was cast by the lanterns, blitzed into view, neon pink bathing the black of the rock as that electrified chirp pattered off again in an echo. “Dad?” I called gently before rounding the corner. Maybe it was some cavern, the end of the excavation, and he’d be right there looking for me. 

No such luck. Instead, I somehow stumbled outside again into a grove with the strangest trees I’d ever seen. 

They were tall like maples, trunks void of any sort of run off until the top third of its bark, but the bark itself…it glistened with rainbow colors that shined with the dance of the auroras above. Like someone took waxy crayons and ran them along the groove of the bark until it melted into the wood, staining it forever. Rows of those as far as I could see, shining away in their cool glow. 

I’d almost forgotten why I came here in the first place — Dad was close. I’d seen him before rounding the corner, and was hearing that same chirping again, growing louder quickly. Pink and blue blew past me so quickly I stumbled back with the buffet of wind, barely caught by a rainbow tree trunk. It took me a moment to recover — the sound made my ears pop so roughly they began ringing, and something about the blast made me dizzy — but I managed to keep an eye on Dad’s neon aura as he blasted past the pit and somewhere into the grove of rainbow trees. 

“Dad!” I shouted, pushing off of the trunk. I was sure he didn’t see me in the woods, but there was no way he didn’t notice me just now! Was he avoiding me?

God, he was quick. He could probably eclipse the speed of light if he really tried, and that did nothing to benefit me or my position as I rushed after him at a normal gait, restricted by my unfortunate humanity. Brent gets metal muscles, Dad can do this — why didn’t I get anything cool? It was bullshit. I was going to have to figure out a way to keep a wave going and ride that wherever I wanted — because this? “This is bullshit,” I gasped as I ran. 

But I ran. Kept it up even as something burned in my left side, the stitch begging me to stop, until I burst out of the trees into arguably the most beautiful place I’d ever been. 

It was that moment before daybreak where the sky itself seemed to struggle to wake up, the last of the stars catching in the glint of the crystals. It looked like a retention pond that was drained out, now a crater lined by nothing but glittering rocks in colors and shades and patterns I’d never seen in real life. I didn’t know there could be pinks that rich or greens that deep in a stone! Their jagged ends stuck out of the edge of the dry pond like scales, patterned in a way that almost tricked my eyes into thinking they were moving. Were these the stones they were trying to find at that excavation site a ways back? No wonder they were digging so deep.

There was a beaten path in the dirt around the edge of the pond, rich smelling soil soft against my feet as I walked around it. Light was beginning to permeate from that unknown source again, an entire day already gone in here, and the way the light bounced off of the crystals…my god. I’d never seen anything like it. It reminded me of figuring out that I could hold my quartz necklace up to a ray of sunlight and cast little rainbows everywhere, only quadrupled in awe; the entire area became basked in rainbows and glittering dots, bouncing off of the grove behind me and dancing in the refraction of my dress. The bottom of the emptied pond was smooth rock, almost white and not at all rough as I flitted down the crystals as a waterfall and regathered from the rush of my liquid dress, standing at the edge of the dome. 

I turned in place, running a finger along the closest wall of crystal to see if any were loose. They were so close together but it didn’t seem like they were placed there, either; blue and pink and purple and green all sprouted beside each other like siblings. 

There was a bzzzzzzZZZT behind me, and the wall I was facing lit up as it absorbed the light of Dad’s neon as he flitted around the pond. I spun in place in time to watch the ball of neon jump, reaching a height that shouldn’t have been possible even with Conduit powers before landing opposite me on the other side of the pond and releasing the grip on the power, form returning…returning to…

Neon stayed in segments, ribbons that acted as clothing waving in the breeze of the speed. There was still an edge to it all, slits in the pink neon skirt that slipped high past her hips and exposed the blue of the undergarment, the two colors creating a geometric crop top that turned purple where their weave intersected. She stayed charged, pulses of neon literally letting off of her skin in soft blitzes that audibly crackled and illuminated everything about her ethereally. It wasn’t just the light that made her shine, though; it was her, the same person in those pictures with Dad, no gray to her skin or sullen cheeks or bones that protruded just a bit too much to be healthy. Her hair was even back to fully pink, brushed out of her face as those eyes, Brent’s eyes, met mine, turning soft. 

“Mom?” I gasped out after forgetting to breathe the entire time she settled in place, straightening. Neon stayed playing on her hands, wrapping around it again and again like a pet snake. 

How…how was she here? Mom was gone. She’d been gone since before I’ve been conscious — so how was she here, in front of me, able to tilt her head to the side slightly while looking at me?

You shouldn’t be here, sweetheart. 

She didn’t open her mouth, and yet I heard her voice rattle around in my head. God, was that what she sounded like? Dad wasn’t kidding when he said she had an accent. The pet name caught on the Jersey dialect and shattered some preconceived notion in me I didn’t even know was there. Modulated and adenoidal, it probably would have pulled me in even without it being the fact that that was my mother speaking. “You’re alive?”

Her words didn’t even really register until I realized my gaping didn’t make that look on her face change. Shouldn’t be here? “Where are we?” I asked, looking around at the crystals. They were all so alight now that the entire area was bathed in either blue or pink. Mom was caught in a halo of her power, a bit hard to look at — but I didn’t avert my eyes. I barely even blinked. “Have they kept you in here this whole time?”

Oh my God. Oh my God! My mom was alive, and she was tangible, right there! I could reach out and touch her if I wanted! I moved forward a half-step, intending to do just that, when Mom flinched in place, backing up to keep me away. Why was she shaking her head? Why did she look so upset, so worried? 

This isn’t how it’s supposed to go. 

Her voice echoed around in my head again, whispers of each syllable catching on each other and amplifying how sad she sounded. “How what’s supposed to go?” I asked. Were they keeping her here for a reason? “Do you know what’s going on?”

She didn’t answer at first; just kept looking at me with a melancholy that slightly shifted in her eyes. Maybe it was because of the tears pooling in mine, I don’t know. It made her drop her hands in defense, though, and take a step closer. 

Something shattered in that air between us, and we were suddenly booking it towards each other — well, I tried to. She burst into a neon aura I realized was much more pink, more pure looking than Dad’s, and beat me to the punch — or, tackle. She sorta slammed into me, enough to make my gasp breathless as for the first time I could remember, my mother hugged me. 

You always imagine moms are soft and gentle. At least, I did. Mom, though? She was tough. The surprisingly strong grip held on to me like I’d turn into sand in her hands and she needed to take the chance to feel me while she still could. I understood, I felt similar; I needed to make up for nearly 15 years of hugs. Love we missed out on as she was, evidently, trapped here. 

Trapped. There had to be something more, something bigger going on. “We should go, there’s gotta be a way out, right?” I asked, pulling back slightly. I didn’t get far; her arms tightened so hard around me that my water rode over her neon, making the contact on my back skin to skin. 

She smiled slightly at this, one arm pulling back to scoop away at the bit of my dress in the back and watch the water drip off of her fingertips. 

Water. Haven’t seen that one yet.

This one came with a laugh, a beautiful sound that chittered like a bird. She smiled wide, shaking her head. 

“It’s pretty cool.” I turned pink, sniffing a bit. “You should see Brent’s though. He gets wings, it’s kinda unfair. He’ll show off for you all you want once we break out.”

Something in her expression changed again, and her one hand came up to cup my face, swiping away at a rogue tear. 

You look so much like your father.

I knew I did, but I was beginning to see pieces of Mom in myself now that she was in front of me: the same lips, the same eye shape. Brent got the most of her but now that I had proof that pieces of her lived in me? 

Well, it was more than I could ask for. It was everything I ever wanted.

Dad. “Have you seen him?” I asked. “I — we were attacked, those Archangel guys — they broke out Augustine and sent her to kidnap him but he wasn’t there — he was coming back, but I had to do something to stop them from killing more people and I—“ I looked around. “I don’t remember how I got here.” Her fingers were playing in my loose hair now, a sensation I never thought I’d experience. The neon in her hand crackled against my eardrum, sent pleasant little tingles up and down my scalp as her hand brushed against my skull. “Come on,” I finally said, grabbing her hand before it could brush through my hair again. “Let’s — there’s gotta be some way we can get out. How long have you been here? Have you noticed anything?”

I meant to keep ahold of her hand when I broke away from her, to begin traveling hand in hand and figuring out how to leave. If I could get Mom out — god, Dad would lose his mind. And Brent! She needed to see Brent! 

But she stayed in place, gently pulling her hand from mine when I took a side-step away and shook her head again. 

I can’t leave. 

“What?” I gawked. “What do you mean you can’t leave?” Why did she suddenly look so dejected? “If we work together, there’s gotta be some way we can break out of whatever this place is! Archangel can’t have a compound that huge, there’s gotta be a border—“ 

Jeanie.

My name. That’s what it sounded like when she said it? I’d never heard it said that beautifully before. 

But she stayed looking at me in that sort of dejected melancholy, like she was regretful of everything she missed. Like she planned on missing more. That sadness in her eyes made something heavy land in my chest. “Mom? What's wrong?” 

She moved forward, both hands coming up to gently grip my head and she tilted it forward, kissing the top of it. She stayed there long after releasing the kiss, unmoving until she said—

You need to go back. 

Yeah, I did — with her! Why was she suddenly acting like that possibility was impossible? “Did Archangel do something to you?” I asked when she released me. She said this wasn’t how it was supposed to go — did she cut some deal with Archangel? “Mom it’s — we can get away, Dad should be coming soon and Dr. Sims was with him—“ 

Mom took a step back. And another. Her hand came out to stop me in place when I tried following her. 

You can’t stay here. This isn’t where you’re supposed to be. Not yet.

There was a sudden burst of light, and Mom flitted back, forming from the neon as quickly as she disappeared in it. That aura of neon stayed around, played stronger on her skin, more snakes of ribboned pink crawling down from her shoulders to dance around her arms. “Mom, I don’t — what’s going on?” 

Not if I have anything to say about it. 

The ribbons around her arms began to spin until I couldn’t even differentiate them from each other — she was just alight at the arms. The dance of the color lit up the pit until it was hard to keep my eyes open, surrounded by rainbows of blue and pink. 

Mom lifted a hand, the same one I was holding moments ago, the fingers I could barely see in the glow giving away to that same glow as it charged. What was she doing? 

Her hand pointed off to the side, to the face of the retention pond, and shot a beam so powerful the trill of its ability made my eardrums throb. It hit a rather large crystal protrusion, its blue turning purple, and refracted off of its surface, shooting for me. 

The beam slammed into where that stitch in my side laid, burning into me and making me cry out in pain. My mom was attacking me! Why was she attacking me? The beam stopped, zapping away without the fanfare of electricity, and I stumbled back in its hit, casting a hand over the wound. “Mom—“ I cut off when skin touched the rawness, hissing instead. 

You have more you need to do. 

The other hand lifted and shot a beam at a crystal on the right, bounding off of it and practically punching me in the chest. I doubled over, tears coming to my eyes both because of the pain and because I didn’t understand what I did for her to do this! It felt like more than being set of fire — I felt like I was being incinerated. The beam dissipated, and I barely straightened in time to see her lift both arms, a mournful smile on her face complimenting the tears streaming down her cheeks.

I love you, so much. But I can’t keep you. 

More neon slipped down from her spine, pushing into her hands until they practically glowed like little suns, and she released, the beams crisscrossing a thousand times in the drained retention pond before colliding with my back. 

I tried to bring up some water to stop it, but there was no point — something that powerful couldn’t be stopped by liquid. It cut through my water and lit up my entire body until it felt like it was aflame, leaving me to scream in place as I tried to repel it somehow. The neon danced in my water, combined with my water until the entirety of what encapsulated me grew to glow like a supernova, and my vision began to white with it, losing Mom in the haze. 

Over my screams and the pain and the ringing in my ears, I heard her one last time. 

Our boys need you. 

The white overtook my vision, and I slipped away into this in between; pain was still there, in my side and chest and back. I felt like I was traversing through jello, trapped to experience every atom of anguish individually. The hiss of the neon even seemed to slow, like I was beyond sound itself; it just became a ring of tinnitus, barely anything at all until something else began to happen. 

Beeping. There was beeping, and a gross sort of sterile smell, like bleach. Is that what a body smells like when you zap it? “Defrosted plus six minutes, doctor.” 

“Good. Vitals?”

“Pulse is forty-five, respiratory ten.” 

I love you. Mom’s voice called from the back of my mind, distant. Like she was already worlds away from me. 

The hum of neon disappeared, and the dilation of my experience began to crunch, the pain growing and becoming compounded into itself as the voices grew clearer. The white light disappeared from my eyes and I gasped out as the world, its agony and soreness and confusion crashed into me, and my eyes shot open. 

#infamous erosion #infamous second son #delsin rowe #Fetch Walker #Sucker Punch Productions #fanfic #fanfiction #IM BACK BABEY #LET'S GOOOOOO

[duhragonball]

Yooooo been catching up on your blog and luffa lately. In the thick of the blood rubies now, very interesting. Haven't seen the flick so I have no idea how much is true to that or where you're going with this but an internet mystery nonetheless. Sending this ask because the gurumes depiction reminded me of something and I wanted to put it on your radar if you didn't already know about it. HAVE YOU HEARD OF TARRARE? He was a real historical figure who was always, always hungry and would eat anything as a result. His story is fascinating and terrifying and I highly recommend looking into it. I first learned about him from the Sawbones podcast ep titled "The Man Who Ate Everything" but I know he's been covered in other places as well... and at one time if you googled him you could find a deviantart account with a bunch of anime drawings of him...I think he was being shipped with some other old timey French guy but I don't remember who? But I digress...

Sorry, I keep forgetting to answer this ask, so I'm gonna do it now. First: thank you so much for keeping up with my fic after all this time. It means a lot to me.

Second, I had not heard of Terrare, but when I looked him up on Wikipedia, I found out that he claimed to have swallowed a golden fork, which reminded me of Gurumes, because in the movie his gold coins feature a bat holding a fork. So maybe Terrare inspired the character? Certainly, they share a desperation for a cure to their hunger. It's kind of scary that this sort of thing could happen in real life.

The original movie is kind of mediocre as Dragon Ball movies go. The big problem is that it just retells the early chapters of the manga, but with a second, original story grafted onto it. And the new story and characters are interesting, but they never really get fully developed because the movie is too busy retelling Goku's first meeting with Oolong or whoever.

What inspired my version was when I rewatched the movie in 2019, and it just felt like a cutscene from the Xenoverse games, where you'd expect it to cut back to the Time Nest and Trunks frets about all the changes. "Goku's Dragon Ball wasn't supposed to get stolen! Wh-what's going on here?!" Pasta and Bongo kind of have this Towa and Mira vibe, now that I think of it.

Also, every shot of Pansy with the good guys just looks... wrong. Like, if this was your first exposure to DB, you'd think she was part of the gang, but she never appears anywhere else. She looks like an OC who got doodled into the existing story, but she's not, she's a movie character, like Lord Slug or Tapion, but having her just be part of Dragon Team is weird.

And then there was the Blood Rubies. Where did they come from? Why had they never caused a problem before this? Shenron just yeets them all into space and that fixes everything?

So my big idea was to try to tie up all the loose ends by making the whole movie into a rogue time anomaly. The big problem was that it meant pitting my action heroine against a bunch of rocks, but I think it turned out okay in the end.

#ask duhragonball #luffastuff

[catcrazies-midnight]

Things That Happened 2Day:

 - mom found my stylus tip

 - i was turning over rocks in the garden when i was greeted by not one but TWO(2) WHOLE SLUGS  - - babies. i let them crawl on my hands while i was putting the rocks back into place bc i didnt want to crush them

 - mom made cookies :)

#i think i remember the rocks where i found the slugs #and i let them make their way back under so #i should b able 2 find them later #aslo i can draw cee and shel and esca and dae now!! so i should do that.lol #aslo a couple of are foster babies were returned yesterday #which is :( but the owner wasnt very good anyway #and were fostering them rn #i think its rasia(???i dont know how its spelles) #and remy #also i never even mentioned the 4 ocs i just listed off r new #theyre based around a timevirus concept i came up w this week #bc Thats How I Am #most of them r nice but shel got exposed 2 the Wrong Things and accidentally cee and then the entire euth center #the ocs r nice id didnt say teh place they came from was #cees ts is jack stauber today today shels is just take my wallet #aslo im open to asks abt oc lore esp w these four so if youre curios #do the funey ask #cat but rambling #textpost #slugs #slug #ask to tag

[startanewdream]

#15 from kissing prompts please😂😂😂 with sirius interupting them?

Hello! This prompt fit so well with Shirtless (Braless?) Lily June, that I just had to write it, so thank you so much for providing me the inspiration.

And because #15 was rather steamy, this is rated M ;)

‘You are gonna be the death of me, Evans,’ declares James, voice heavy and strangled, all of his attention occupied with kissing her neck, his hands sliding over the curve of her waist unable to decide where to focus.

Lily lets out a snort, amused (unlike him, her hands are purposefully feeling his chest under the opened buttons of his shirt, because Lily knows exactly what she wants).

‘Am I back to Evans, now?’

James could answer, something about how he only slips into her last name when he isn’t thinking clearly because he very much enjoys calling her Lily, but words are overrated. And he has much better use for his mouth, now busy with finding that particular spot under her ear that always makes her let out a soft moan.

Two weeks. They’ve been dating for a fortnight and James already knows one particular spot in Lily Evans and, by Merlin, he wants to know so many more; there are so many things he wants to share with her.

Like that night, for instance. Slug’s Club traditional Christmas party. It’s an event, and it's a big one as far as James is concerned; it’s their first formal date for all purposes, and he was intent on doing everything right, being the perfect boyfriend.

Things had been according to his plan — he’d given her flowers to celebrate it, nice winter flowers of the colour of her outfit (which he had goaded Mary into telling him); he’d trained dancing to waltz with her (Sirius had helped him as his best friend, under the chuckles of their friends); he had even managed to comb his hair so it looked moderately tamed for once.

Then everything had gone south the moment Lily had taken off her cloak when they reached Slug’s office, to reveal a sparkling blue dress that matched less the cold night and more of James’ dreams of her.

It was not that it wasn’t obvious that James was quite attracted to her; it wasn’t like it was a secret that he found her beautiful, and particularly tonight with the careful make-up on her face, that strawberry red on her lips and the smokey effect around her eyes that made the green glint dangerously.

But his attraction for her became corporeally obvious the moment she revealed her dress, a light blue, sleeveless satin dress with a v-neck, that hung loosely above the waist and clung to her hips.

He should be able to drift his eyes from her cleavage, he should ignore the swell of her breasts that the dress made sure to highlight, if not for the fact that when his gaze met hers, Lily was smirking.

Not any smirk.

That I-know-I-am-driving-you-crazy smile that James himself had used on her before they began dating.

He can respect her for choosing carefully the moment to make him prove his own poison. Merlin, he loves her for that.

A better man might resist, might pull off a fight for his pride and refuse to let her tempt him so easily, but James was never proud when it came to Lily. So he endured all the party, still relenting in the idea of being the perfect date, and the moment dessert started being served, James figured it was enough.

Lily didn’t bat an eye when he asked her if they could go back. That smirk had not left her face all party, and she didn’t even look surprised when at the moment the portrait closed behind them in the Common Room, James pushed her against the wall, his lips crashing over hers with a desperation that suggested he hadn’t seen her in weeks.

Not in those clothes, that he hadn’t seen her ever, but it’s a sight he can get used to as far as he knows.

They are alone in the Common Room, only the embers of the fireplace illuminating the room, with no expectation of anyone coming to find them. So it’s easy, embarrassingly easy, for his hand to slide the strap of her dress until the middle of her arm, only her breast holding it in place.

His lips are still over her neck, now arched to give him the best access she can, and his gaze falls to her cleavage that the dress reveals so nicely. She’s not wearing any bra and somehow this realization — though he should already know it — presses more his desire for her. He let his mouth follow the trail of the freckles she has on the shoulder until he’s kissing the top of her breast. She shudders but does not reprimand him.

He places small kisses over any exposed flesh he has access to, then he raises his hand on her waist, just enough to hold her under her breast. His thumb moves carefully, feeling the swell of her breast, and her sharp intake of breath makes him pause.

His eyes meet hers when he raises his head.

‘James,’ she calls him, breathless; her green eyes are a black pool as she stares at him, unblinking. ‘Don’t stop.’

It seems both a request and an order, but whatever it is, James will fulfill it. His hand moves away from her breast enough to finish sliding the dress strap off her arms, and then the sight of her left breast greets him, the nipple hard, up and down with her heavy breathing.

Merlin, he could stare at it forever.

But it would not be enough, so he lets his hand touch it again, feeling it, thumb over her nipple in a way that makes her moan (particular spot number two, he thinks, recording it dutifully), and then his lips replace his thumb. Her hands react immediately, burying themselves in his hair, messing it in a much more spectacular way than James could do it, and giving him a very clear instruction.

She doesn’t want him to move away.

Which suits him just fine, because he feels he won’t ever want to move away either, not with the sounds that escape from her lips as he slides his tongue over her breast, desperate to kiss everything, to taste the flavour of her skin, to immerge into the scent of her body.

A hand searches her other breast, over her dress, urging him to find some balance after all, and the other hand holds her back, dangerously close to her bum, and by Merlin he doesn’t want to stop. He frees both of his hands, trying to lift her dress, but the skirt is too tight.

‘James,’ she calls him once more, his name feeling eternal on her lips, a siren call he can’t refuse. He stops kissing her just enough to lookat her. ‘We can go upstairs.’

That made him hesitate, not because he is unsure, but because he wants it very much; his body is making it obvious how much, and by the way Lily rocks her hips carefully against the front of his body, she knows it too. He takes in her figure, lips swollen from the precious minutes they spent kissing each other, face pinkened with the heat of their movements, and then her dress, strapless on one side to reveal her breast, so tantalizing.

And still…

‘Are you sure?’

‘We don’t —’ she pauses, a flush heavier than before arising in her cheeks. ‘We can just —’

‘We’ll see,’ he agrees, his mouth covering hers while his hand helps her put the dress strap back in place.

Then she holds his hand and follows him upstairs, pausing only to take down her heels so she can walk quietly. The door of his dorm room opens without any sound; the entire room is silent, all curtains down in the beds, and James was never more grateful for this fact.

He guides Lily to his bed, careful to push the curtains around them, letting only a tiny gap for the moonlight to illuminate the bed; it’s not a full moon but it’s more than enough for him to see Lily’s face and that’s all he wants. She looks both defiant and nervous.

She lays in the bed, her gorgeous hair now out of the braid she had used for the party, all curls spreading out over his pillow. It’s a gorgeous sight and he lays on top of her, careful to sustain his weight on his arms as he bends down to kiss her again. Her hands work expertly in his shirt, finishing to open the buttons there, her nails sinking into his back. He muffles his moan into her mouth.

Now his hands can work into both of the straps of her dress, sliding them out of their arms so she is laying in the bed naked from above the waist; he feels her breasts touching his chest and this notion (Lily is his bed half-naked) sends a wave of pleasure and desire down his body, inhumanly stronger than before. He breaks their kiss desperate to feel again the taste of her skin, to let his tongue glide against her nipple, to hear the pure purr in her throat.

‘Lily,’ he moans, and she stops him, so close to her breast, that it’s almost painful.

‘Shhh,’ she remembers, a finger over his lips in warning; he answers by kissing her finger, then her wrist, raising her hand above her head. She offers him her other arm, allowing him to trap them together as he moves his free hand over her chest. Her heart is beating so fast that he can see the vein of her neck pulsing. ‘Please,’ she mouths.

He complies at once, lips covering her breast, enjoying how she arches her back as if she needs to be even more close to him. That’s a feeling he certainly shares, moving his body just enough to centre with hers, a soft groan escaping from his mouth as her hips move to match his movement.

And then he needs to stop kissing her at all, biting his lips with enough force to draw blood, because Lily’s hand are working now over his pant, one hand opening the belt and the other feeling the length of him, the one undeniable evidence of how much he wants her —

‘James?’

Sirius’ voice breaks the silence of the room, sounding louder than a bell, a call to reality in a dream James really doesn’t want to wake from at the moment.

Lily’s hands stop suddenly, still around him, her eyes open widely as they stare at each other, both wishing that Sirius was just dreaming (and James won’t even tease Padfoot for calling his name in his sleep).

‘I know you are there,’ Sirius says, voice dangerously close. ‘I heard you coming.’

No, you didn’t, James thinks.

‘Is everything okay? You came back early.’

James forces his voice out. ‘Everything’s fine, Padfoot, go back to sleep.’

‘Are you sure? Is everything all right between you and Lily?’

In another moment James would appreciate Sirius’ concern for his relationship — that he roots for more than anyone else, he knows. But now, as her hands leave his body to redress herself, embarrassment all over her face, James feels only flustered.

‘Yeah, yeah. Just let me rest.’

There is a pause. ‘Fine,’ Sirius says, evidently upset, walking back to his bed. ‘Forget that I asked.’

Now James sighs guiltily, and Lily throws him a sympathetic look. James moves, coming to rest at her side, their moment painfully broken.

‘Sorry,’ he whispers, as low as he can.

She turns to him, her hand supporting her head. ‘It’s fine. We shouldn’t really…’

He refrains from sighing unhappily. He knows Lily is right. They’ve been only dating for two weeks after all, and there is no rush for anything. They can enjoy just each other’s company, taking this slow — Merlin, he’s so stupid for not being able to control his feelings — no, his lust, so unchivalrous —

‘I mean, your friends are there,’ she adds, oblivious to his thoughts. ‘In the holidays we can find a room just for us.’

He blinks, eyes widening, heart racing desperate in his chest.

‘So you mean —’

‘Only if you want.’

In answer, he looks down, to the place where his body still makes evident how much he wants her. She lets out a giggle, that he muffles kissing her longly.

‘Holidays,’ he agrees later, breaking apart with difficulty. She watches him with fondess before sighing.

‘I should go.’

‘No, stay, please.’ He offers her his arms, which Lily accepts with a soft smile, sinking into his embrace. He caresses her back. ‘Very innocent.’

‘Hmmm. Just a while. Until Sirius sleeps.’

He agrees with his head, placing a kiss on her forehead.

‘I think he’s already sleeping, Lily,’ comes a voice from the other bed.

‘Yeah, he sleeps quick,’ adds Peter.

This time James doesn’t bother muffling Lily’s nervous giggle, joining her. Holidays, he thinks. A room just for the two of them. No noisy friends.

#Jily #Sirius Supports Jily #But he is clueless sometimes #Someone should teach Muffliato to these kids #Kissing Prompts #Jily fanfiction #t: fanfiction

[frosted-night]

Jack Frost Designs Review

Yes it’s finally his time. This is going to include his book designs including previous incarnations in said books. There are more movie concept designs than book so, let’s dig in shall we?

This was in fact the first ever Jack Joyce designed while he came up with The Guardians Of Childhood. He even comes with his own backstory! (Which was cut. Sorry Joyce posts walls of text so it’s a girthy read.)

So instead of a young mischievous trickster, we got a much more depressing story of Jack. (Jack by default is sad obviously) but this one... It kind of hits differently and almost reminds me of the story he crafted for Pitch. A dad who tried to defend his family but through tragic events was ripped from them and changed completely. Design wise, he’s a lot more tree than snow. There doesn’t exist a colored version of this so we’ll never know if he sported winter and dull dead leaf colors rather than grassy greens.This Jack has a weird presence to him, I can’t put my finger on it. Rating: 6/10 He’s really neat! Just a little too Autumn feeling rather than a blend of both Autumn and Winter.

Nightlight feels like the baby evolution if Jack was a pokemon and that's what I’m gonna stick with. Below is a more recent version of him colored.

In all honesty that one is easier on the eyes proportion wise because sometimes Joyce has ‘interesting’ anatomy choices but we aint going into that today. It’s interesting how his hair somehow looks shorter and longer than Jack’s at the same time. Could be because the longer strands float seamlessly but star boy hair physics what can ya do. It’s a little hard to tell what is his skin and what is his armor, so that is a casuality in making a character only have one or two colors in their color scheme. I love other artist’s depictions of Nightlight but the canon one feels a little weak color wise. Rating: 5/10 Sorry, get some better LEDs and then come back.

Here we have a book Jack but I can’t entirely recall if this was used in the books or not. I digress. This design looks like him still wearing very Nightlight-esque armor/clothing and slowly growing into his new persona as Jack Frost. The intricacies are hard to make out but we’ll work with it. This one is very interesting to me because he very much looks like an older teen close to young adult. His hair looks very fluffy too. Not many complaints about this one but not much praise either.

Rating: 6/10 Not great but doesn’t stand out that much.

Remember when I said Joyce had ‘interesting’ anatomy decisions? Jack looks like he has half a head here and it bothers me GREATLY. This is the adult Jack design he went with. Supposedly he likes the opera and he sure looks it. This! Exists!! Kind of wish it didn’t. The outfit is nice but it just doesn’t fit Jack as a whole. This just screams to me that it’s someone else with a similar-ish hairstyle.

Rating: 3/10 Guess he’d be the...Phantom Of The Opera. (I’ll go home and so should he.)

And finally the final Jack. This is the one that almost exactly resembles the Jack we got in the movies(Probably because it was made after the movie but w/e) but just add a cape on him. I can’t really tell if hes got a hoodie and a cape, or just a cloak+hood on top of a sweatshirt. It isn’t too important because my thoughts on this one are obvious. Rating: 10/10 Edna Mode would have a field day with you boy.

MOVIE DESIGN TIME

Joyce claims this is a design he drafted when Leonardo DiCaprio was considered to voice Jack and I can kind of see that with how his face is drawn here. This Jack looks a lot more like a warrior and less of that trickster look. I can’t say I’m a fan of the weird antenna his hood has but his sword is really cool looking.

Rating: 4/10 Nice bow and sword but it can’t save your fashion choices.

This looks like a lanky 11-13 year old who would put rocks or slugs in my shoes and relish in my disgust. He has the exact look of a snot nose kid and I’m unsure how to feel about it.

His various hairstyles drafted here sort of make him softer looking or just more of a snot nose, no in between. Maybe even an Anime Protagonist.

The top right one almost looks like Hiccup from How To Train Your Dragon if you squint. It’ll be a little hard to rate them all as one individual but why not.

Rating: 5/10 I don’t hate them but they aren’t my cup of tea.

AH- IS THAT A FUCKIN GREMLIN?

Oh wait no it isn’t he looks like a 10 year old. Whatever don’t feed him after midnight. The staff’s design of not being shaped like a G is an interesting tidbit but the whole design looks like he’s really young or like a troll etc. This Jack looks like he thinks girls have cooties uses outdated slang.

Rating: 4/10 This is me being generous.

It honestly looks like he hiked his pants up all the way to his chest. A late teen with horrid fashion choices once again. Not many other thoughts here.

Rating: 2/10 Get a sweater on or something.

This is one is very interesting looking to me. His clothes looked a lot more leather based and very human-like. The tatters, tears and frays all make him look like he was a victim of an accident that never changed his clothes. It makes me wonder if this Jack had the same death as the final movie Jack or something else entirely. Either way, this one looks like hes a mid to late teen which really adds to my intrigue.

This was another image that greatly resembled the design so I included it here. It almost looks like his skin is blue here which is pretty neat to me at least. He’s also got leaf motifs here, which from the first Jack design Joyce made, we can see a pattern here.

Rating: 8 /10 I was originally weirded out by his head but now its not so bad.

This Jack is definitely dressed more like a nature boy rather than him having human influenced fashion and it’s an appealing touch. The tiny leaf sprouting from his staff is also kind of cute since the designers seemed to want to put leafs somewhere on his designs. His hairstyle is also very cute but it reminds me of Sasuke Uchiha in a sense. (Not a setback for me at least)

Rating: 7/10 13 year old Jack is going thru a phase.

I thought this Jack didn’t show up again in story boards but I was wrong!

They look a little different from each other but just similar enough to pair together, so bare with me. The first one obviously has looser pants, slightly longer sleeves and got his leaf motif going. This second Jack is a VERY green. It gives the impression that this Jack made his clothes out of plants and natural materials. Again I’m not wholly sure if greens fit his color scheme but they sure went for it for a while. I can’t say I’m a fan of it because it heavily reminds me of Peter Pan.

However a very similar looking Jack could be found in this storyboard. It doesn’t look as green as the other storyboards made it out to be and looks more like dead grass. Which is a pretty nice touch.

Rating: 5/10 I don’t hate it but it just doesn’t vibe yknow.

Speaking of a vibe...hoo this certainly has one.  This Jack isn’t old but certainly doesn’t look very young, maybe in the 20-30 range, thats just me. He has facial features that remind me of Pitch but resembles the Jack Frost of Santa Clause 3

That being said, I wondered if him looking similar to Pitch was in the storyline of them being brothers.(Which was a scrapped thing, who knew.) He’s a bit more menacing in this design but certainly seems like he relishes in his work.

Rating: 4/10 I’d make it a lower score but I gotta give it props

NOW THIS JACK IS KINDA INTERESTING. This one looks like he’s 16 and going through a grunge phase. He’s gonna play Nirvana loudly and not turn it down even if you tell him too. His staff itself has mini icicles hanging off of it and leafs look stuck to his shirt. Did you glue or staple those on Jack? His hair also looks much longer than his other designs and I kind of dig it( Shut up I’m bias.) I’m not wholly sure why else this design has stuck with me but it just has something about it that I just love. I wish there was a full body drawing of it.

(He also kinda has the same hair as the Jack Frost in Runescape but I wont go on about that hoo hoo)

Rating: 9/10 *Bad Boy by Cascada plays in the distance*

This one definitely feels like middleschooler trying to be in a band. His sticks just resemble drumsticks to me what can I say. I’m a big fan of his shoes and his color scheme screams a hibernating tree in winter. His hair also looks like it’s covered in frost rather than it being wholly white, which is very neat!! He looks like he wants to fight but has slight hesitance. Overall a very balanced Jack.

Rating: 8/10 He’s ready for band practice

Not many thoughts here, I just found these tiny Jack designs cute. His hoodie being a jacket instead just adds to the charm of this one.

No talk to him he angy.

Rating: 6/10 fun sized boi

Now this Jack resembles the one earlier that dressed entirely in leather brown colors, however he clearly is different than that one. I’m gonna say it, he looks like a zombie or undead in this design and its pretty fucking gnarly. I don’t know whats going on with his hair but I’m gonna assume it’s just the wind making it look like that. He just has the vibe that he was once human but was turned into something else entirely. It isnt in uncanny territory but borders that. This version of Jack meeting Pitch and the others would have been *very* interesting. Rating: 7/10 Eat a twinkie Jack you’ll feel better.

The final design! I can’t complain much about this one. The way his staff subtly has a G shape and a hexagon(his signature shape) is a wonderful touch. Additionally, the way the frost is gathered mostly where his hand is such an intricate detail. His signature hoodie is iconic at this point so I can’t bad mouth that either.(I can’t anyway because there's no complaints from me here.) Although, I never understood the leather straps that his pants had or their functions. I couldn’t find any colonial outfits that resembled Jack’s pants so its a total mystery to me at least.

And I can’t go on about this design until I mention the snowflake pattern in his eyes

Pure beauty. It’s at a hue of blue that almost looks impossible to have, combined with the electric blue color of the snowflake in his eyes. The amount of detail in this movie amazes me to this day. Rating: One Great Blizzard <3/10

#rise of the guardians #guardians of childhood #jack frost #jack frost rotg #jack frost goc #jackson overland frost #nightlight #nightlight rotg #toothiana #tooth fairy rotg #e. aster bunnymund #nicholas st north #pitch black #pitch black rotg #concept art #artbook #art book #design review #my bullshit #stay tuned for Aster's review

[inkandpen22]

Dazed and Confused (S 1: 4/?)

Pairing: Steve Harrington x Female!Reader

Warnings: mild language and violence

Word Count: 3.1k

Part Summary: Steve and Y/N spend the weekend together and on Monday, Nancy can’t remember a thing... 

Masterlist

I woke up early with a headache and decided the best course of action is a hot shower. I let Steve stay in bed, after the tough night he had he deserves it. 

After hopping out of the shower, I turn down my radio and quietly bop to 

Culture Club. I wipe down the foggy mirror and start my hair routine. It takes a lot to get the voluminous hair of the decade. Once I'm done, I emerge back into my bedroom to grab a change of clothes, leaving my radio going. 

"Morning," Steve voices, staring up at the ceiling. 

I jump, squeezing my towel around me. "Oh uh, hi, sorry! I thought you were still asleep!" 

He lifts his head and realizes I'm in a towel. His eyes grow wide. "Oh shit! No, my bad! I uh... I'll go downstairs!" He rushes to climb out of bed. 

"No! No! It's okay! I'll go get ready in the bathroom! Let just me grab some stuff!" I hurry over to my dresser. 

Steve settles back down with a sigh, clearly happy to be able to rest after the night he had. 

"Have you been up long?" I ask. 

"Nah, just thinking about last night and what happened with Nancy..." he states solemnly. 

"Well, it's Saturday," I remind him of the perk. "My parents are gone to Chicago for a business trip for a few days, which means we can hang out here. A nice big chocolate chip pancake breakfast," I suggest, heading back toward my bathroom door. 

"Sounds nice," he grins. "And then we could go to the mall, maybe rent a movie?" 

"Splash?" I request. 

He nods, meeting my gaze again. "Deal." 

I move to head back into the bathroom to get ready with a content smile. 

"Hey Y/N?" He rushes out, flying up from his laid position.

I hum, turning over my shoulder. 

"Do you-" oddly, he stops himself, shaking his head. "Never mind," he laughs. 

"You sure?" 

He nods, "yeah. Don't worry about it." 

I shrug and head back into the bathroom. Weird. 

________________________________________________

Steve and I are curled up on my couch, watching Splash, one of my favorite movies. A bowl of popcorn and M&Ms shared between us, along with a blanket. 

I shake my head, immersed in the movie. "I love- 

"Tom Hanks," Steve chuckles, tossing some candy into his mouth. "How many times have you seen this movie?" 

"At least a dozen," I confess. 

He glances over at me. "You have a problem." 

"Tell me about it," I smirk proudly. 

Abruptly, the phone in the hall starts to ring. I huff, hopping up off the couch to get it. 

"Want me to pause it?" Steve checks. 

"Nah, I've seen it," I giggle and pick up the phone.  "Hello?" I greet. 

"I need you to come over, right now!" Dustin panics. 

I frown, glancing at Steve through the archway in confusion. "Now? Why? What's wrong?" 

"I've found a giant slug!" He rushes out. 

"A slug," I repeat in annoyance. "Seriously, Dustin." 

"I've named it Dart!" 

"I'll see it on Monday," I move to hang up. 

"No! You have to come over now!" He insists. 

"Kinda busy here," I grumble under my breath. 

"Busy? How are you busy? You're never busy." 

"I am too! I have company!" I tell him. 

"You don't have company, Steve is over," he argues. 

I hurry over to the window, the phone cord following behind me. Steve watches me in curiosity as I scan up the road at Dustin's house. "Are you watching my house again?" 

"That's not important!" He shouts, clearly guilty. "Why are you hanging out with Steve?" 

"Why do you have a giant pet slug?" I fire back. 

"Fine, just bring him too!" 

"We can't, we have plans." 

"Son of a bitch, you're really no help at all you know that?" 

I scoff. "Oh save it, I drive you to school every day. Bye!" I hang up the phone. 

Irritated, I walk back over to the couch and pull half the blanket back over me. Thankfully, I didn't miss anything good in the movie. 

Steve hands me the candy bowl. "What was that about?" 

"I don't have any biological siblings but I do have a little brother," I remark, making him snicker. 

_________________________________________

On Monday morning, I blast Night Ranger through my Walkman as I unload my bag into my locker. Dustin wouldn't shut up about his stupid slug all the way to school. He was pretty annoyed that I didn't come in and see it this morning. I assured him that I would stop in when I drive him home. Suddenly, I feel a hand on my shoulder and I spin around, removing my headphones. 

Nancy nervously rocks on her heels, gripping her books to her chest. "Hey, have you seen Steve?" 

I frown. "Not yet, why?" 

"Have you seen him since Tracy's?" 

"Yeah..." I reply hesitantly, wondering where this is going.

"Well, he hasn't answered my calls all weekend," she tells me in a hushed tone, glancing up and down the hall for eavesdroppers. "Whenever I left a message, his mom called back and said he was out. Do you know what's going on with him?" 

"I don't..." I drag out, debating on if I should tell her the whole truth. "After a certain point, all I remember is Billy hitting on me and Steve driving me home." I stick to what I know for sure happened. 

Her face changes from concern to confusion. "Wait, he drove you home? I thought he drove me home." 

"No, I mean unless he drove you home and came back."

She whines, glancing down the hall anxiously. "I better go talk him. I'll see you later!" 

I nod and mumble an 'okay.' I watch as she hurries down the hall toward the gym where Steve likely is hiding. I slip my headphones back on with a sigh. This won't be good. 

____________________________________

I walk out of Algebra with my friend Veronica, gushing about the newest Elton John album. Abruptly, a hand wraps around my wrist and I yanked away from her. 

"Woah! Jesus!" I blurt out and my eyes land on Steve as he hurries me down the hall. "Okay Harrington, where are we going?" I laugh nervously. 

He releases my wrist and presses his hand to my back. "McDonald's, a park, anywhere, I don't know! I just want to get out of here." 

"But I still have chem before lunch," I remind him. 

"You can afford to miss one class," he laughs. "Your GPA is what 3.9999-" 

I roll my eyes but comply nonetheless. "Well, there goes my perfect attendance." 

Steve and I run by McDonald's and enjoy our milkshake and fries in the parking lot. Steve has the radio quietly going in the background as he fills me in on the details of his talk with Nancy. In summary, it didn't go well. 

"So she doesn't remember any of it?" I clarify. 

"Appears not." He rolls his eyes, shoving some fries into his shake. 

I nod, processing it all. Then, I remember what happened Friday morning. "I forgot to tell you. Jonathan came up to me on Friday and accused us of sneaking around behind Nancy's back." 

Steve nearly chokes on a fry. "What?" He coughs. 

"He saw you climbing out of my window," I explain. 

"Well-" He starts to panic. "Well did you tell him we're just friends?" 

"No, I told him we're having a wild, passionate, affair," I sass. "Of course, I told him!" 

He releases a sigh of relief, holding his chest. 

Geez, he's so dramatic. 

"Maybe I should apologize to her," he determines. 

My brows scrunch together. "For what?" 

"Good point... Do you think he'll tell her?" 

I shrug, how am I supposed to know? "I don't know. Probably not," I remark a tad more annoyed than intended. "Have they talked lately?" 

"He drove her home that night. I told him to," he tells me. 

"Oh..." I mumble, allowing my focus to wander outside. 

Steve shifts in his seat to face me. "Do you think he knows I was at your place?" 

"I don't know..." 

He huffs, tossing his head back stressfully. "How did things get this fucked up?" 

I reach across the divider and place my hand over his gently. "It'll work out." 

He sighs, his eyes meet mine worriedly. "You really think so?" 

I hum to reassure him, but frankly, I have no idea. I just don't have the heart to tell him the truth. Plus, it hurts to watch him worry about Nancy when a piece of me is selfishly happy that they're over. 

__________________________________

Masterlist

#steve harrington imagine #steve harrington #steve harrington fanfic #steve harrington smut #steve harrington x reader #stranger things image #stranger things fanfic #stranger things smut #stranger things

[queenmuzz]

A post DMC5 one-shot

Inspired by an image I cannot find anymore. I'm not sure if it's concept art, but it's just a stylized illustration of Vergil and Dante slugging each other.

Vergil and Dante are trudging through hell, and Dante is constantly pestering Vergil between fights. Asking him what he was up to after the fire, asking if he has any idea where he's going (Dante’s pretty sure they passed that rock two times in the past hour), how the hell Yamato ended up in Fortuna, and most irritatingly of all...who Nero's mom is. Vergil's irritation is beginning to boil over.

"I'm just saying," Dante continues blissfully unaware how much of a hornet's nest he's kicking, "If there's something I know about you, it's that you don't settle for mediocrity, so she must have been special, eh? Was she THAT good in be-"

"ENOUGH!!"

Vergil launches a punch straight in Dante’s gut, trying not to enjoy the slight grunt of pain his brother makes.

“You haven’t changed a bit, have you! Always pestering me, always sticking your nose in thin-”

He doesn’t finish, because Dante rapidly recovers and launches a savage uppercut that causes Vergil to briefly see stars.

“OH YOU’RE ONE TO TALK ABOUT NOT CHANGING! YOU’RE THE ONE THAT DESTROYED TWO DAMN CIT-”

Dante gets cut off by left hook, “YOU HAVE NO IDEA OF WHAT I HAD TO DEAL WITH,” and now the veneer of emotional control has been stripped away, “THE THINGS I WENT THROUGH, THE THI-”

He takes a jab straight on the nose, and he instantly feels the blood streaming down his face.

“WHAT YOU WENT THROUGH!? WHAT ABOUT ME!? WHAT ABOUT WHAT I WENT THROUGH WHEN YOU FELL INTO HELL!? WHAT ABOUT WHEN I FOUND OUT WHO I KILLED ON MALLET ISLAND!? YOU EVER THINK ABOU-”

Another punch, temporarily silences him.

“IDIOT!”

A gut shot.

“JACKASS!”

A cross punch.

“ARROGANT LITTLE BROTHER!”

Another uppercut.

“DICKWAD!”

Yet another punch, although it doesn’t have the force he intends… he’s already getting exhausted.

“PIECE OF SHIT!” His throat is raw, and he’s certain blood is now staining his coat.

Dante seems to be just as tired as he swings, but misses, and stumbles. As if on instinct, Vergil goes to catch him, only to collapse under his weight.

And so they land in a jumbled, exhausted heap, their heaving breaths the only things louder than their heartbeats. Just two middle aged old men, both drained after taking a few punches. What would their father think… he chuckles at the thought.

Dante’s labored breathing transforms into a shuddering, before blooming into a hearty laugh. It’s contagious, it seems, because even without lifting his head, his chuckles turn into laughs, punctuated by coughs as he tries to not inhale his own blood. There’s something so…cathartic about it all.

“I can’t remember,” he hears his brother’s muffled voice on his shoulder (no doubt staining his coat even more, but strangely, he doesn’t mind), “the last time I heard you swear…or even if you EVER swore… It sounds… weird.” He laughs again.

Vergil can’t help but smile. “Well, you do have the habit of accomplishing the impossible, including trying my patience…” “And you…” Dante says, “you have the habit of turning up like a bad penny.”

And even though his brother goes back to laughing, Vergil hears the unspoken words.

‘And I’m glad you’re back…’

He can’t help it, he holds his brother tighter, and Dante groans a bit.

“God, you either did a number on me, or I’m getting old. It’s probably the former, I see where Nero gets it from…”

The thought of his newfound son causes a new pain to twinge in his chest. Strange, Dante never punched him there…

“I think…” he looks up at the rock they’ve collapsed by. It DOES look like the one they’ve passed by before. “It’s time we get out of here, and get cleaned up.” He wrinkles his nose, ignoring the pain, “Your stink is probably the reason that all the demons have been scared off.” “Look who's talking, or rather, SMELL who's talking! But yeah… I’m starvin’. Say, I know a pizza place who’s owner owes me big. How about you…” they both wince as they help each other up. “Make us a portal and get the Hell..heh… out of here?”

Vergil unsheathes Yamato, not even the slightest tempted to stab Dante with it. All his rage, his resentment, its all been spent on his bruised fists. Cutting into the air, he opens a portal back into the Human World.

Back to his home.

“Age before Beauty!” Dante makes a chivarious bow, his blood smeared sardonic grin attempting to rile Vergil up. Vergil doesn’t take the bait. Instead, he suddenly throws his arm around his brother’s shoulder.

“We’ll go through together.” Dante hears the unspoken words loud and clear.

‘I’m not leaving you ever again.’

His little brother laughs again and returns the gesture, swinging his arm behind Vergil's neck, and side by side they enter that gaping void, leaving Hell for hopefully the last time, their laughs echoing long after the portal slams shut.

#devil may cry #Vergil #Dante #The poor person at the pizza place #two middle aged men walk in #they're covered in blood and each have welts on their faces #and worst of all #they're laughing

[alderaani]

Skies

summary: After a long campaign, Jesse and Hardcase indulge in some well earned TLC. AO3 | Series 

Part of my 100-clone centric prompts series, prompt list used is here

wanrings: allusions to canon-typical violence, death mention.

a/n: oof, I’ve been so unmotivated to write recently, so i’m honestly just relieved to have finished something. i’ve been wanting to write this for ages, based off this post by @lilhawkeye3 - it’s such an endearing image.

-

The ocean didn’t smell anything like Hardcase thought it would.

He slipped his bucket from his head, squinting against the sudden rush of unfiltered light. On either side of him troopers broke free of the tree line, and, feeling sand beneath their boots, took off whooping towards the frothing crest of the sea. The sunset blazed red and orange, bleeding like a punctured egg yolk across the cloudless horizon and into distant water. Hardcase breathed in, wrinkling his nose against the salt-laden tang, so visceral he could taste it.

It wasn’t like Kamino. That was almost the biggest surprise. He’d thought that oceans would be the same everywhere, but this wasn’t a bad way to be proven wrong. It was the salt, he realised after a moment, darting his tongue out to touch his lips. There weren’t really any beaches on Kamino, though he supposed there must be sand under there somewhere. There were no winding strips where ocean met land, where the sun could ferment the pools, rocks and shells left behind. It tasted lighter there, cleaner, more cut through by its brutal winds. He breathed in deep again, wrinkling his nose and grinning at the way the seasoned tang sat on his palate here, briny and thick.

It was the colour too, that really made the difference. It was so pale and clear on this far-flung planet, instead of the angry greyish blue he remembered. The waves were...politer, somehow. Less vengeful, not boiling with ever-falling rain. Several troopers had reached the shore now and were chasing the surf, shouting and laughing when it nipped at their heels.

He decided he rather liked it.

It was something different after weeks spent cowering under cover further inland, coated in showers of dark earth from enemy artillery and rationing out stale water in mouthfuls that were barely enough to coat the back of the throat. Even the air was damp here, and overhead the gulls were crying, sharp against the thundering crash of the waves. He lived for these moments, these breaths between the axel-grind of war. It was true that he loved the spoil of a fight, loved sinking into it and letting his Z6 sing. But there was a different, more intoxicating thrill in these snatched hours or - if they were lucky - days. He’d never voiced it to anyone, but he sometimes thought he might like to do this all the time, one day, trawling the stars and standing beneath unfamiliar skies. For the views, this time, explored under his own rhythm.

Yeah. That sounded pretty good.

“Oi, Hardcase!” Someone bellowed, sticking up a hand and waving at him amidst a far away knot of troopers knee deep in the sea. “You coming?”

He shook himself, setting down his pack and his Z6 with loving care amongst the mountainous piles of gear, before jogging down the dunes, following the trails of discarded armour and the shouts, happy laughter and splashes echoing from the water. The wind was sharp on his face and neck and on the strips of skin at his wrists, intoxicating and too heady to ignore. The sand was strangely weightless beneath him, too. He’d slept on a real feather pillow, once, while they were hunkered down on Ord Sedra and several hundred crates of luxury bedding had gotten damaged in the crossfire. It had felt like floating, and all of them had tossed and turned all night. This was similar, and just as strange...what would it all feel like on his skin?

The thought wouldn’t let him go. Halfway down the beach he sat to strip off his boots, then his plates, then his blacks, until he stood in just his greys, laughing at the feeling of the wind and the spray licking against his body. The way it cut through the stubble sprouting on his scalp after far too long stuck in a bucket-locked zone was...disconcerting. The prickle of just-forming curls felt like phantom fingers on the nape of his neck, and he’d found the way sweat clung to hair under his helmet sort of disgusting - it reminded him of being an under-washed cadet. Frankly, he didn’t plan on letting it stay long enough to get used to it.

The sand though...now that was weird. The way it sat between his toes made him squirm, each grain a bolting pinprick against the soles of his feet. When had he last had his boots off? Back on the Venator in the communal fresher, probably. It was a cruel galaxy when that barren room and its clinical racks of scentless soap started to look like a king’s treasury. He dug his feet into the cold, wet sludge, shivering in disgusted delight as the beach swallowed them whole.

“Hardcase!”

He looked towards the bellowing figure stumbling up the sand towards him, squinting as the sun hit their upturned face. Then he barked a laugh of surprise at the edge of the Republic cog he found there.

“ Jesse? Kriff, vod, barely recognised you.”

It was the first time he’d seen his flesh face in weeks, aside from in hurried moments allocated for gulping down rations. Jesse’s hair had grown in thick and black, much to the consternation of several brothers who were offended he could grow a moustache like that and still chose not to. Right now, he reached up to scratch the offending hair on his cheeks and scowled.

“S’rich comin’ from you. What is that slug on your face?”

Hardcase winced. His own unwilling hair cultivation very much proved that clones were not all made equal.

“It’s a casualty,” he said, feeling the short, patchy bristles on his upper lip. His trainer had always promised it would settle as he came out of puberty. That had been a lie. Hardcase blamed it on the crack in his growth jar, like he did most minor physical inconveniences. “This is why I don’t bother with the stuff.”

Jesse nodded, turning away to rummage through the packs strewn over the sand. “It just won’t stop itchin’.”

“You’re telling me.” Hardcase groaned. “You didn’t get woken up last night because your hair tickled the back of your neck and made you think you were bein’ jumped.”

Jesse snorted, straightening back up with his meagre GAR-standard microfibre towel in hand and a ration bar hanging from his mouth.

“Was that what that was about?” he asked, voice muffled. “We thought we could hear you squirmin’.”

Hardcase kicked lightly at Jesse’s ankle. “Real nice of you to not even ask if I was alright.”

Jesse broke off the ration bar and smirked round his mouthful.

“‘Case, it’s when you go quiet that we start asking questions.”

Hardcase shoved him. Jesse went down with a yelp and a curse, his towel catching under his ass and the loose end flapping like a banner in the wind. Hardcase bellowed a laugh, kicking sand towards him. It was a fatal mistake.

Jesse caught him by the ankle and yanked him down too. He landed on his stomach, still laughing as the wind knocked out of him, and scrambled forward with abandon, yelping with shock as water seeped cold and heavy into his greys. He wasn’t fast enough. A leg slung heavy over Hardcase’s ankles, pinning him, and then Jesse’s weight was pressing down on his back, forcing his face towards the wet sand.

“Get off, you kriffin’ shabiir,” he laughed, groaning as Jesse adjusted his weight and squashed the air out of his lungs.

“I’m not the one startin’ fights they can’t finish,” Jesse retorted, his voice light.

“Who said I was finished?” Hardcase shot back, going limp and then bucking hard. Jesse swore, losing his grip, and then they were scrabbling again, a tangle of limbs and righteous yelling.

The fight ended with them lying side by side on their backs, both covered in muck. Hardcase was sure he had sand in his crotch. The sun was still blazing on the horizon, lower now, deepening from yellow to dark, hazy red. It gleamed like fire on the water, like copper on the sand. This world was so reluctant to let the light go, eking out the daylight drop by drop. An errant touch to his thigh made him look over. Jesse was rummaging around underneath himself, grumbling about something digging into his back.

“You think we’ll get to stay here long?” Hardcase asked eventually.

“Aw, hell,” Jesse said, pulling the squashed, sandy remains of his ration bar from underneath him. “This was my last flavoured one. What’d you say?”

“D’you think we’ll stay long?”

Jesse hummed, flinging the ration bar away up the beach. A gull immediately swooped down to snatch it. “Here? Don’t think so. Heard Rex talking to the General, lots still to do before we can get off this rock.”

Hardcase sighed, letting the disappointment wash over him quietly. He shut his eyes again, just listening for a moment, committing the sounds of the sea to memory. It wouldn’t be goodbye. He’d come back to this place, one day. He’d make sure of it.

“So,” he said, cutting himself off before the longing could get too strong. “We gonna shave or what?”

Jesse scoffed. “What? Now?”

Hardcase shrugged. “Why not? We leave here, we’re gonna be back on water rations, right? You really want that nest growin’ for however the fuck long?”

Jesse sighed. “Course I don’t. But what the hell’re we gonna shave with? You didn’t bring your razor, did you?”

“Not a chance,” Hardcase said. That was only a mistake shinies made.

It wasn’t so bad if you lost one of the Kamino issue ones - those were about as blunt as a butter knife. Better to grow hair on campaign and hack it off later than lose one you’d bartered. He still mourned the first he’d ever owned - he’d never seen another with the same quality Corellian steel, and Uppercut had been so smug to win it over sabaac. Gracious enough to let him keep using it though. Some of Hardcase’s best memories were in front of fresher mirrors with him, taking it in turns and helping catch any stray hairs, paying each other in gossip for their trouble. He still hadn’t forgiven that bastard for dying. The first time he’d had to shave after had left him curled over the sink, his head half lathered and his whole body shaking, so on their next planetfall he’d taken the razor with him and buried it in the nicest spot he could find.

Uppercut had always preferred cities to trees, but Hardcase hoped that, wherever he was, he’d appreciated the effort all the same.

“I do have a vibroblade, though,” he carried on brightly, grinning at the way Jesse’s expression fell.

“Absolutely not.”

“Aw, come on. It won’t be that bad.”

Jesse pushed up on his elbows, his face scrunched. “If you think I’m gonna let you dry shave my head with a dagger, ‘Case, you’re more stupid than you look. I want a haircut, not a cut head.”

Hardcase rolled his eyes. “Who said anything about dry shaving? I’ve got soap.”

Jesse paused. “You’ve had soap this whole time? Here?”

“What can I say, I’m an optimist,” Hardcase said, peeling his back out of the sand. “You in or not?”

Jesse didn’t answer, just stood, grinned, and offered Hardcase a hand.

The light continued to wane as they made their trips up and down the beach, finding a good spot where the shoreline banked a little, and where it would keep the worst of the wind off while Hardcase lathered Jesse’s head. He stuck his tongue out a little as he worked, trying not to get distracted while the frothy water lapped at his ankles. He felt himself loosen as he scraped the vibroblade over his brother’s head, even just the act making him feel more like himself. It relaxed the jittery edge his thoughts always had, dialling down the almost frantic noise that built in combat and then sat under his skin. Usually it took a good spar to bounce it all back out of him, but this had always worked too…it had just been a long time since he’d had anyone else to go through the ritual with.

When it was his turn, he all but melted under the gentle, smooth touch of the vibroblade on his head, the soapy lather chilling quickly on his skin. He hummed, the feeling of the pads of Jesse’s guiding fingers on his chin almost too much sensation after so long under plastoid. He let his mind drift, watching the ocean and listening to Jesse’s mutters and curses as he concentrated.

When they were done and had rinsed in the freezing water, the sun had almost vanished, leaving only a purple after-bruise on the darkened sky. Most of the battalion had settled much further up the beach near the largest sand dunes, so they drifted there and claimed a patch of sand, pulling on their blacks when the sticky film of drying salt water got too much in the cold night air. After a late meal of ration cubes, and, far more enticing, some dried bantha milk the last villages they’d fortified had gifted them, Hardcase was splayed out on his back again and feeling quite ready to have a nap.

Jesse was lounging beside him, carefully rehydrating his milk with water from his field flask. Hardcase couldn’t remember the last time they’d had a night like this, where the war had felt so far away.

They turned their heads at several loud hoots, a crash, and a cheer, followed by an angry bellow. He squinted his eyes against the sudden flare of bright light.

Several brothers had constructed a modest bonfire out of driftwood - and, Hardcase suspected, several unlucky clones’ blacks - and had just tossed over a spare fuel canister, setting the whole thing ablaze in a column of blue flame. The tense figure stalking towards them looked awfully like Appo.

“D’you think we should help him?” Hardcase murmured, his hands propped comfortably under his head. Plasma always burned fast and hot, and he could already feel it faintly against the side of his freshly exposed head. It was nice; soothing, even.

Jesse hummed, pushed up on one elbow so that he could sip at his drink.

“...Nah,” he said slowly, lowering his cup and scrubbing away the blue moustache left behind. He flopped back down with a boneless huff. “Appo’s a big boy. He’s got this.”

Hardcase turned his head again, in time to see Appo tug futilely at some of the dark fabric being swallowed by flame. He chuckled and shut his eyes, breathing in deep and enjoying the soothing melody of shouting that, for once, was not being directed at him.

“Yeah,” he murmured after a moment, sighing as the heat flared and there were more jubilant whoops. “I think you’re right.”

taglist // @nelba @leias-left-hair-bun @simping-for-fives @missinashkin @iscream4clones @majorshiraharu @dom-i-nic @snippytano @808tsuika @eries45 @whatanoof // list here

#alderwrites #hardcase #clone trooper hardcase #clone trooper jesse #arc trooper jesse #501st legion #star wars #the clone wars #the clone wars fic #jesse #time to hit post before i can decide i hate this loooool

[ace-t-fic]

Riverside Gryff’s

Phone fanifc be warned no grammar (I made the greaser au + plus any complaints about lily’s writing are based heavily off she was written I just added more on having a sister like petunia to it.)

The ear-piercing sound of glass shattering dulled in comparison to the loud chatter and Music, and that filled the room. But the workers heard it with a heavy sigh as one marked down another tally mark. That's the fifth one; it's only three days into the week. These kids brought in good business but Minerva thinks they’ll run her dry with all the replacements she has to order.

“I’m headed out!” Diana rushed tapping Severus on the shoulder. He only bid her half-assed goodbye before he finished tying up his apron. She was an elderly woman that handled the hard coffee crowd in the morning. By the time Severus clocked in half of the morning/afternoon crowd was beginning to rush out. They were replaced by the younger staff who could handle their own crowd— teenagers.

If there's one thing besides the teenagers, they hated about this place; it was working the floor. Sure the girls loved it and reveled in being next to the many teen sleazeballs that frequented it, but Severus did not. Weasley also downright hated it; the Spinner's End kids had no qualms about throwing him the harshest of nicknames. ‘Fire Crotch’ was a favorite of Severus'.

But Severus hated working the floor whenever any of the jocks down from the riverside visited. Especially when A bunch of spoiled jocks who thought they were thugs came in. Riverside Gryff’s etched across their backs on black leather. All they did was change from their letterman jackets on the way over. They never did anything but bully and abuse lesser people than them. On the other hand, Severus knew true thugs that would stab you in the gut for anything.

"Whatcha thinking in that pretty little head there?"

"All the self-defense moves my mother taught me to ward off men like you." He stated boardely before grabbing at his notepad "What will it be, Potter."

"The in-between Sundae."

"The hell is that? Severus said before reaching under the counter to grab a hold of one of the menus. "We don't have that here."

"Sure you do" James started, a sultry smile gracing his lips as he leant halfway over the counter."Just give me a bottle of whipped cream and spread ya legs-"

"You never know when to shut up, give up and move on," Severus hissed. Briefly eyeing the patron over giving them disapproving looks.

"Of course I don't. I've seen you in my leather jacket."He smirked, leaning closer on the bar." and out of it."

"Excuse me!" Snipped a customer causing Severus to jump-start and remember he's at work, hitting customers is not in the business model.

God, he really hated life sometimes, more so when he took into account that lily was probably the worst friend he's ever picked up. Realistically she roped him into more trouble than his short run with Lucius. She was his best friend but they all were too fucked in their childhoods in too many ways.

They met in church, and he lived on to see her try as hard as possible to shake the notion that she was square. She wanted to rock and sing blues in midnight clubs. Ask Severus, and he'd tell you he had always thought she was jealous of his sister in that way. Petunia, as much as a devil, still managed to garner her family's love while she was sneaking out from the back porch with a cigarette in her pocket and Vernon waiting in a cab a couple of blocks down. At one point she had roped Lily into being her secret keeper.

Lily always folded under pressure and being a square for the rest of her life crisped the edges. So much so that she got involved with the crowds at the riverside. Severus would've never seen it coming with their separate schools and incomes between them. That was until he started shadowing her in town and movie theaters. They went to a dollar movie that day. Abbott and Costello and Severus stood there awkwardly with three other girls who called em'selves goldies. They got into their seats, and it was fine but it seemed like they were making a fuss over nothing and throwing popcorn around. They kept glancing to the side of them and that was when he had noticed a group of three dudes sitting a couple of seats down and to the side.

It got to the point where it was irking Severus just enough for him to take a glance at what exactly put the girls in a frenzy. Got his answer as an equally irked Potter rolled his head up to glance in their direction. He had remembered him of course, preacher's son and an asshole that spent Sunday school telling Severus that since he was a bastard he'd be going to hell. Now he's a thug that keeps staring even as Severus turns his head coming to terms with not getting to watch the movie.

Even when it had finished and Severus retreated to the bathroom to wash his hands an amused James slid past him with a mumbled apology. It got even worse from there when he got his slug from a neighbor who passed and was the designated driver. Finally, it ended with a bonfire on the lake. Lily had gotten ahead of herself in strip poker and Severus was there with his shirt to save her when she went prancing along the lake. The night ended with both of them soaked and a little worse for wear.

Once the hysteria passed and lights in the lodge filled with the teens, Severus had sat on the pier miserable. James plopped beside him and his jacket heavy on his shoulder now that he was shirtless. The whole thing was weird, the atmosphere changing and stretching uncomfortably whenever they were in the same Vicinity together. Didn't stop Severus from leading him back to his car, though. When Lily had found them a few drunken words and curses later Severus had tried his hardest to drag her home. A moment later they were both found in a tree.

Severus is a little irritated to wake up and find the preacher looming over his hospital bed in prayer with his mother. A letterman jacket sitting on the seat beside him.

"How's Lilly darling," Trelawney asked, fumbling with the register.

"She's good, doing much better in the silent towns. Reckons she'll visit for the summer."

"Oh, sweet girl. Shame that DUI, these gangs they got themselves into, gold ladies and whatnot. In my day I would've been dealt with, with! a wooden spoon. "She chattered grabbing a few bills before jampacking the drawer closed." You be careful with these lot, charming boys aren't passaged to paradise." Before making her way back to the table she was servicing.

"Full of shit, that one." He heard a voice mumble near him. "Untouched and a nail-biter." Severus’s hands clenched to hide his nails before glaring at the curly-haired boy.

"Oh come on, I'm not talking about you."

"Then why make observations pertaining to me." Severus seethed, abruptly reopening the register. "Well, it's adorable when you do it-"

"Piss off," He said before going back down the bar.

His night only got worse as 4 more glasses were broken and a fight broke out. A drink knocked over and a wet shirt later with stains on his jeans had him reeling for a day off. And when clean up was said and done Minerva locked up the gates and he saw Arthur off on the bus he waited under his spotlight.

"Your shirt is a little wet there, need a change?"

#jeverus #snames #jpss #ssjp #jeverus au #james potter/severus snape #me making sev do fast food again #I don't write lily having a fu life because i want jeverus to succeed (remus/lily supporter) i just think the way jk had her flimsyness when #it came to being a friend had other reasons too it most probably concerning pentunia and how they both wanted to be eachother for different #reasons but ended up lowkey hating eachother instead.

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Akio

CW: References to the death of a friend, grief, suicide, murder 

Sequel to Found Out and this past flashback to Oliver Branch

The sound of thin, breaded pork cutlets frying in the big pan on the stove fills the air, and Akio breathes in the familiar smell where he lays on his back on his parents’ gigantic cream-colored sectional couch, stretched out across the whole length of it on one side. Not that he’s all that tall to take up all that much space, really, but what matters is that he would definitely have fallen asleep by now if it weren’t for holding his phone up over his face.

It fell on him, once, and he’s pretty sure no one noticed. Emi, his younger sister, hasn’t even looked up once from her own phone, except once to triumphantly announce that no one caught her and they all voted someone else off the ship. Then she looked back down and never looked back up.

Akio frowns, looking at his own screen, tapping his thumbs as he writes out an answer to the person messaging him. “Hey, Mom?”

“Yes?” His mother looks up from cooking, her eyes moving through the big open space right to him. They’d knocked down all the walls when they bought the house, open-concept-something-something. Akio didn’t care, but it was apparently deeply important to his parents. Something about family togetherness.

“You remember Tristan Higgs, right?”

Aimi pauses, tucks a bit of her short black hair behind one ear to get it out of her eyes as she flips the pork cutlets on by one, to get the other side nicely browned, too. The sizzling ratchets up in volume and then back down again. Next to her sits four bowls already filled with rice, and the table already has the vegetables ready to go. “Of course, honey. Oh, the anniversary’s coming up, isn’t it? I have an alarm set on my phone… did you want to go to the cemetery next week to see Ronnie and Paul?”

“Ew, no creepy graveyards for me, thanks,” Emi says, eyes still glued to her phone.

“We wouldn’t take you anyway,” Akio says, rolling his eyes. “You don’t even remember Tris or his parents.”

“I do, too. I was like seven. He was really nice. Mrs. Higgs was really nice, too. Mr. Higgs was weird.” 

“Wow, what a stellar eulogy that was, Emi. I can see why you want to be a writer when you grow up. The description there was just incredible.”

“Oh, go drive into a lake,” Emi says, without any particular rancor in her voice. 

“If you’re going to fight, I’m going to send you two upstairs so I at least don’t have to listen to it,” Aimi says, moving the cutlets to rest on a paper plate with paper towels lining it while she heats mirin, soy sauce, and… some other stuff in a different pan. Honestly, Akio has no idea exactly how katsudon happens, all he cares about is that it’s the perfect after-practice food and he is starving.

Except he keeps getting distracted by this guy on Insta. “Anyway, Mom, um, about Tris. So… yeah, I do want to go out and see his parents next week, yeah, but-... there’s this guy on Instagram who keeps asking about him. That’s… that’s weird, right?”

Aimi looks up, blinking. “Asking about Tristan? What is he asking?”

“Just like… he says he saw the video I put up on youtube, and he’s asking, like… what was his birthday, and did he like fried chicken, was he autistic, and… did he like musical soundtracks. This is weird stuff to ask a total stranger, right?”

“A little.” Aimi pauses while she watches the pan, and then pours a small bowl with beaten eggs into it, watching them spread and start to lighten to a puffy yellow as it cooked in the already-boiling liquid mixture. “Did you ask why he wants to know?”

“I did, but he just said he’s doing some research or something. But, like… research on what?” Akio taps on the guy’s little profile photo, bringing the profile itself up. “His username is benthebadmagician. Okay that’s-... that’s kind of cute.” 

Aimi’s voice turns sly. “Is this Ben cute?” 

“Ugh, gross, Mom. That’s not-... I mean he’s kind of-... that’s not important.”

“Ooooh, eyeballin’ the insta-hotties,” Emi singsongs. “Aki’s gettin’ desperate. Just get a freaking dating app like everyone else.”

“Already on it, Emi.”

“Then why exactly don’t you get any dates? Oh, right.” Emi sits forward and grins. “I forgot about your personality.”

Akio throws a throw pillow at her and the big orange poof misses by a mile. Emi laughs, getting to her feet and wandering over to the fridge, pulling a can of soda out and popping the top. “Aren’t you an athlete, how the hell did you miss that?”

“Language,” Aimi warns, waving a spoon at her daughter. She gently places the cutlets into the cooking eggs to finish up. “No swearing under my roof, young lady.”

“Aki swears all the time!”

“Aki is twenty-four years old,” Aimi says, almost primly. “And he doesn’t swear where I can hear him.”

“What, so it doesn’t count if you don’t hear him?”

“Of course it doesn’t, how do I know if I don’t hear him?”

Akio smiles, faintly, but he’s scrolling through the Ben guy’s instagram feed now. Just looking at the grid of squares, photos and videos. Lots of coffees and food, people laughing, photos of a girl with really pretty hair. Photos of Ben the Bad Magician himself. Nerd, Akio thinks, but cute nerd - definitely nose-in-a-book type. Nice brown hair, nice smile. 

“Oh look at that face,” Emi says, eyebrows raised. “Ben the Insta-Weirdo actually is cute huh?”

“Go eat slugs.” Akio keeps scrolling down and down, not sure what he’s looking for. Autism awareness banners - he checks those to learn the Ben guy’s got an autistic little brother, and his friend Christopher is autistic. There’s a couple slides, and he swipes his finger to what he assumes is a photo of the Ben guy with the little brother, who looks almost exactly like him, just a whole bunch younger and looking, unsmiling, off to one side while Ben grins at the camera.

Akio doesn’t bother checking the last slide - it’s probably just whoever the Chris guy is. He backs back out to the grid of thumbnails. Maybe he just picked up on the stuff Tris always did when he was excited, and got curious? Maybe his little brother liked the video? Akio’s gotten a couple comments from people saying they liked seeing an autistic kid just be fucking happy in public without getting shit on for it, and that used to be a big deal for Mrs. Higgs, too...

The question about musicals keeps snagging at him. Tris loved musicals, went through cycles with them. He and Akio had a whole routine done to a song in Hairspray, just for fun, when Tris was obsessed with that for a while. And then they were going to do the Time Warp as a routine once...

Akio keeps scrolling, only vaguely aware of his sister and mother talking, and Emi leaving the room to go call their dad in for dinner. 

Emi stops in the doorway and turns back. “Don’t forget to get his phone number, Aki. You can definitely trust strangers on the internet creepily interested in your dead best friend, right?”

Akio looks up, then, blinking at her. “Emi, that’s-...”

She seems to catch herself, and gives him a sheepish smile. “Sorry, Aki. That got bitchy.”

“Language,” Aimi reminds her. “But I appreciate you apologizing. Does anyone even hear me say to use nice language any longer?”

“No,” Akio and Emi say in unison, and then Emi disappears down the hallway, bellowing for their father in her loudest voice even though she could easily walk up the stairs and not have to yell at all. 

Akio looks at his mother and deadpans, “Your daughter is really weird.”

Aimi matches him tone for tone. “Your sister is weirder.” 

She places the cutlets on top of the rice bowls with the egg just underneath the meat, carrying them one by one to the table, setting them each down in their place, and then grabs her glass of wine, patiently waiting for her while she cooked. She pads on bare feet across the hardwood floor over to the pale white rug, soft as down underfoot, and stands next to where Akio is laying down. “Are you looking at the profile?”

“I am, yeah. I don’t know what I’m looking for, really, just… hey, wait.” Akio stops at the thumbnail preview for a video, tapping to open it up. It starts with a blue-haired boy smiling, and his smile hits Akio all odd, makes his throat tighten and his heart start to race. The boy in the video puts up a finger and backs up, glances over his shoulder at a TV screen behind him playing the tango scene from Rent. 

Akio blinks as the boy holds out a hand and a girl with really gorgeous long wavy hair takes it, the two of them moving effortlessly into a perfect mimicry of the dance on screen. The room they’re in is mostly empty, furniture shoved to the walls to turn what looks like some kind of lobby into a dancing space.

“Wow, that kid can really dance,” Akio murmurs, but the smile catches him, tugs at the back of his mind. The blue-haired boy can’t keep the grin off his face, it has to hurt to smile so big for so long, and the last person Akio thought that about was…

“You got this, Chris!” Someone calls from offscreen, and for a second Akio hears Tris and catches his breath, but no, no, they said Chris. Someone else claps for Mari - that must be the girl, maybe. 

They continue to dance, and Akio can’t tear his eyes away. “Mom? Do you see this?”

Aimi looks up from straightening some magazines on the coffee table and leans over, sipping her wine absently. “See what, honey?”

“Look,” Akio whispers. His throat is closing up, he can’t manage anything more than that. 

The two do a spin, and then burst out laughing, and the Chris boy stands back up straight, throwing his arms up like he’s just hit a perfect landing-

“Oh my god,” Aimi says next to him, her own voice strangled and choked, and Akio feels his mother’s hand suddenly clutch onto his shoulder. “Aki, is-”

“He’s dead,” Akio whispers. “He killed himself after his parents-... he’s dead, Mom.”

The Chris boy looks right at whoever was filming the video, shoots them a brilliant, shining smile, and then starts rocking, his hands moving through the air and twisting at the wrists, bouncing up and down on his toes.

Akio’s breath is shuddering in and out, and his heart pounds, trying to break out of his chest. “He’s-... Mom, he’s dead.”

“His aunt had him cremated,” Aimi says, but her lips are barely moving and the wineglass is loos in her fingers. “After they found him. She didn’t want a funeral.”

“He’s dead,” Akio repeats, thinking of the smile, the movements, the shy way he ducks his head at the end when people clap him on the back. He backs up to the wall again, keeps scrolling, looks for more pictures of the blue hair. He opens every single one he can find, searching for something, some sign that will tell him he’s not seeing what he knows he’s seeing. “His aunt took his phone away after like three months and then he was dead a month later, wasn’t he?”

There’s a pause.

“Mom? Mom, didn’t he kill himself like four months after they died? Didn’t he?” Akio’s voice sounds weak and is getting weaker. “Mom, please-... please answer me, didn’t he-”

“He left a note,” Aimi whispers. “His aunt-... she said he left a note, that he couldn’t live without them. It’s-... I never thought-... I never thought to question her, Aki, I never-... she was Ronnie’s family...”

He clicks another video.

“You’re a fucking mess, Christopher,” The girl from the dance video says, sitting in a tank tops and shorts on the edge of a bathtub. “Letting your roots grow out like that. But don’t you worry, Madam Mari is here to help!”

“Please don’t, don’t don’t-don’t call yourself Madam. Please?” A voice says, uneasily, and the blue-haired boy moves into the screen. “For, for, for me?”

“Yeah, no problem, Chris. Why’d you let it grow out so bad, anyway?”

His hair’s not blue in this one - or it is, but only about half of it. Pale and faded, but the top of his hair has grown back in for about three inches, and it’s coppery strawberry blond. He turns to the camera and gives a sheepish smile. “I, I got distracted and for, um, forgot.”

Aimi’s wineglass slips from her fingers, hits the floor, sprays wine like blood across the pristine white rug. 

Neither of them notices.

“I… I cried for him for like a year straight,” Akio chokes out, and he finds more pictures, more videos, more more more. He opens them up and then backs out of them again, unable to stop himself. Every photo shows him some shard of the mirror reflection of a dead boy all grown up - a sparkle of green eyes, happy motions in the background of a video, more of that familiar sunny smile. “I kept-... I kept all the stuff he left in my room, I saved all h-his text messages from before he d, disappeared, I-”

“This can’t be him,” Aimi says in a fierce whisper. “It can’t be, Aki, it can’t.”

Akio taps on another video.

The boy ties his long blue hair back in it, glancing sidelong at the camera, a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. “And, and, and you’ll, um, you’ll buy the, the, the-the-the nachos?”

“If you can still do it? Yeah, absolutely. Seeing that’s worth a plate of nachos to me. I’ll even buy you those fucking margaritas you like.”

“Chris just likes the sugar,” Someone else says, and Chris sticks his tongue out at them.

He takes a few steps back, rolling his shoulders, shaking out his arms. 

Akio tells himself that if the Chris on the screen doesn’t nail this, it can’t be him, it can’t be him at all. 

The boy puts his hands up, then down at his sides, back bowed briefly in a motion Akio knows too, too well, knows better than he knows breathing. The boy takes off across the grass without hesitation and-

Akio and Aimi both exhale.

-he jumps forward, dips at the waist, catches himself on his hands and does a perfect set of three backflips across a big grassy lawn, stumbling the landing but his feet pop right back into final position, and he throws his arms up with his chin lifted, and someone offscreen shouts, “Perfect Ten, Stanton!”

The boy laughs, shakes his head, says, “I’d be, be, be dinged for the, um, the landing, but-... but, but good, right? I did good? Laken?”

Someone with the coolest hair Akio has seen steps into the screen and they hug, kiss briefly, and then Chris apparently can’t handle the happy emotions because he backs away to start bouncing up and down, grinning.

He looks back at the camera. “Want to see me, me, me... me do it again?”

“He’s not dead,” Aimi says, and her voice sounds like someone closed their hands around her throat. “Oh, Ronnie-”

“What the fuck happened to Tristan fucking Higgs?” Akio’s voice is barely audible over the sound of the video starting over. “He’s… he’s not dead. He’s not dead, Mom, he’s not-... he’s not dead, Mom, he’s not dead and he’s right-... that the university, right? He’s not dead, and he’s, has he-... has he been here the whole fucking time?”

His mother doesn’t chide him for language this time. Her hand tightens on Akio’s shoulder as red wine soaks the rug beneath her feet and she whispers, “Give that Ben boy your number. Tell him to call you.”

Her fingernails ache where they dig into his skin through his shirt.

“Now.”

---

Tagging: @burtlederp , @finder-of-rings , @endless-whump , @whumpfigure , @slaintetowhump , @astrobly @newandfiguringitout , @doveotions , @pretty-face-breaker , @boxboysandotherwhump , @oops-its-whump @moose-teeth , @cubeswhump , @cupcakes-and-pain @whump-tr0pes @whumpiary @orchidscript

#chris the strawberry blond romantic #akio nakamura #hidden whumpee #found whumpee #trauma recovery #parental death mention #death mention #suicide mention #angst #bbu #box boy #box boy universe

[countessofbiscuit]

Suppressive Fire

(Sev/Scorch, E, 3.9k words)

Two bros, chillin' on a top bunk no feet apart 'cause they're vode. . . .

Fleet Support, Ord Mantell, barrack block 7 Alpha, six standard weeks after Geonosis

She’d be built like a tank. That was Requirement the First.

She’d be humanoid, or near enough. Her arms would number ... four. Yes, four arms, each of them doing something clever. Two to open my ass, two to pinch my nipples, her long tongue going to crazy town on my cock, burning off my pubes with her caustic breath—

Sergeant Draka. The near-human-tank was Sergeant Draka, sure as day.

Scorch grabbed this realization with one firm hand and tugged.

Her species was shab-if-I-know: some unhappy hybrid who’d washed up on the far edge of the Outer Rim and been scraped into one of those fringe clans that never removed their helmets. Her folks developed a reputation for ritualized kidnapping that didn’t sit right with Jango. He’d ripped Draka’s helmet off in a duel, apparently, and spending ten years training the spawn of her enemy was the price she’d agreed to pay to regain her honor. All those kids and nowhere to run: a bitter form of torture for both parties. Her trainees were an insular, silent bunch with a tendency to tactically acquire your shit when you weren’t looking, but they got the job done.

Scorch had first seen Draka at a parade for the prime minister when he was three. He’d never forgotten it: she had fangs and yellow eyes and ears that twitched at the tips like they were catching your current of fear. No wonder they’d encouraged her to keep a lid on.

Then Scorch was six and change and he’d stumbled upon her in a hallway. She’d had a cadet upside down, smoking him good for something. “What are you gawping at, Six-Two?” she’d snarled, her generous chest heaving, three spare arms tensing in his direction. “Shift it. Unless you want your balls torn off next.”

Scorch had been a little scared and a lot turned on.

Sergeant Vau didn’t have to use many words to put the fear of Fett under your skin. He was a conservative man. Sergeant Draka regarded a shebs-chewing as the highest form of oratory and her calling in life. Whenever Scorch stood downwind of her in the combat hall, he could feel his eyebrows being singed off a second time.

Sweating a little, Scorch’s core tensed as this fantasy tightened vividly in his holographic mind.

She puts two hands around my cock, one hand on my nipple, one hand clawing under my balls—

Scorch flipped her on her back.

She uses all four arms to spread her trunky legs, hairy as a man’s, wide in invitation—

“Knock it off,” barked Sev.

She was gone. In her place was the knowledge that his brother was clued in to what Scorch was doing on the bottom bunk and determined to make it stop.

But the pressure under Scorch’s balls held firm and his erection stood fast. Sev was an oaf with shit timing. There was a reason they gave Scorch the fiddly wires and det controls. He stretched his fingers and reset his grip. “Not happening, vod.”

“Do you have to be so loud about it?”

“Loud?” Had he said something? Lost control of his breathing?

“Yes. Loud. Like you’re slugging a hamm sandwich.”

Scorch frowned. “Have you ever had a hamm sandwich?”

“I don’t want one now.”

There was some improvement to technique needed there: Scorch was always open to feedback—to the challenge of reducing the marginal noise of a wank. “You embarrassed?” he found himself asking, strokes resuming. Less hamm-fistedly. His orgasm had slumped a little and he'd have to tenderly call it back up.

“I’m embarrassed for you,” Sev said.

Scorch closed his eyes, picturing something ...

Sergeant Draka was back, and now she was holding him and Sev upside down. The arrival of RC-1207 into the sim wasn’t throwing Scorch off. In fact, it was encouraging. Exciting. He even leaked a little at the idea. What was a commando without his squad? Chafed, apparently. He should’ve brought Sev into the game two nights ago, after they’d been rudely pulled from stasis in preparation for some op known only to Boss.

Scorch didn’t remember decant. But Sergeant Vau, who'd wasted no time rocking up to his watery exile when Jango had put out the word, said they’d been ugly, annoyed, and ornery. The nursery techs had given them mock, miniature Deeces to keep their fussy hands and mouths occupied.

Coming out of stasis had to be worse—they were issued Deeces again, but they weren’t left alone to soothe themselves to sleep with weapons. Now their waking moments belonged entirely to some Jedi named Zey. They’d been forced to run a gamut of proprioception and endurance tests, cleaned their spanking new Katarn and cleaned it once more for luck on Boss’s orders, and told to familiarize themselves with their upgraded HUD systems.

Scorch had and he'd found it wanting: no pre-loaded heavy-isotope bangers or high-definition tailhead reference holos. Did he have to do everything himself in this shabla army?

After submitting to all this with only mild complaint—Fixer had sworn in full sentences—the op order was still not forthcoming. Classic hurry up and fekkin' wait. Wait for instructions they didn’t even need. Coordinates, intel support, and a broad objective would have sufficed for a commando tasking: top brass still had a lot to learn. It had left Delta with more downtime than they liked and had left Scorch wanting nothing more than to take care of that perennial need in his groin. And each time, he had to get a little more creative.

“What’re you thinking ‘bout, Sev?” he teased, poking the boundaries of this sim. Longnecks hated that: it’s why they let the commandos have off-world field trips to forsaken places where they couldn’t peel back the corners without dying. “Something profane? Something a little non-regulation?”

“The shab is wrong with you.”

“I’ll tell you what I’m thinking ... ” The opportunity for candor—without Fixer on the opposite bunk telling him to pipe down or Boss around to make it happen—was interesting. And as far as Scorch knew, this slap-dash prefab of a support base didn’t have surveillance bugs like their dorms on Kamino. The range and assault course here weren't even specced for lasers; they had to waste live rounds on discs and be honest about getting locked onto. Not likely.

With nothing left to hide, Scorch rolled away from the wall and relaxed onto his back, his cock stiff and spry. He pulled his hood up and over his wet glans and back down again, as far as he could take it, skin smarting nicely at the stretch. He went on, “I’m thinking about Sergeant Draka.”

“Stop,” Sev said.

“Her thick thighs in my face—”

“Stop.”

Scorch spat in his hand and throttled his shaft. “Biting our balls … ” Okay, maybe that was a little weird. But if Fixer’s quick work of the base pyrowall in the anxious hours before chill-down was anything to go by, weird could be good. Better than good.

“Don’t make me come down there,” Sev growled. Not unlike Sergeant Draka, actually.

Scorch couldn’t help himself. “Oh yeah, do come down here ... ” He bucked into his fist, as if to jerk out that ball of bliss from behind his sack. The mass of him tensed rigid under one fixed goal. His fumbled around for something in the sheets with his free hand. “Come down her thick legs ... ”

If anything could singe Draka’s hairs, it’d be Sev’s spunk. Scorch loved a blast, but Sev would sprinkle baradium on his Oaties every morning if he could. Sev would spill like a gutted aiwha, animalistic and uncontrolled, and Draka would hiss and gnash her teeth and—

And suddenly, Scorch was over the line. His base clenched hard, choking his groan of release. He convulsed and came thickly into one of yesterday’s socks.

“Shab,” he croaked, his vision returning, his limbs pooling with pituitary pleasure. “Blew up real good.”

Somewhere above him, Sev huffed. “Three nights in a row. You’re disgusting—you know that, right?”

“Stasis, my shebs. I’ve never had such busy balls in my short life.” Scorch twisted languidly to the edge of the mattress and sat up, squeezing his cock clean. “Cooking blanks like they might get lucky.” The knotted sock got buried in tomorrow’s laundry and Scorch borrowed some of Boss’s wet wipes for the cleanup. Sarge wouldn’t miss them.

“The rest of us are fine,” Sev countered.

Scorch glanced at Sev over his shoulder. His brother looked like a corpse who’d taken up reading in the afterlife. Base bunks weren’t much cosier than a stasis pod, but something else was keeping Sev’s spine stiff. Something that might affect squad performance if it wasn’t addressed: a bad case of self-inflicted blue balls.

Scorch pulled up his pants and ambled over. “You know ... you say that. But this says something else.” He grabbed Sev’s perky junk.

Happily for his brother, Scorch’s grip was light. So when Sev knocked Scorch backwards at the throat, he didn’t take Sev’s sack with him. A scuffle ensued, half-hearted on Scorch’s side, though Sev was obviously in one of his fuck-off moods. He always was crankiest after a nap; it’d take him days to shake off stasis. And he was still pissed about Procurement’s theft of his helmet, with its authentic Gamma blood enshrined in red paint. That di’kutla squad had been shipped to Triple Zero, and until Sev butted heads with them again, he’d be as scratchy as a flea-bitten akk.

Using the shallow bunkrail, Scorch flung himself up and collapsed onto his brother, asking the cantilevered cot to bear the weight of two commandos. He was a trusting soul. The tussle continued until Scorch allowed Sev to secure a headlock, rather than drag them both onto the floor. They’d just gotten out of one unnatural bath and he didn’t fancy a dunk in bacta.

Scorch tapped Sev’s thigh. “Alright, alright,” he said hoarsely. Sev’s hold loosened a fraction and Scorch scooted out from it. Sitting up, he grabbed the holozine that had gotten pinned against the wall: some monthly edition of erudition that called itself Lasers & Blasters. “Didn’t know you could, Oh-Seven.”

Sev snatched the ‘zine to stuff it under his pillow. “It’s above your cadet-grade.”

“I think everyone knows you’re the knuckle-dragger around here, not me.”

“I think everyone knows I’m the hero of Geonosis, Killer of Sun Fac.”

Scorch made a theatrical noise that sounded like a broken, wet bes’bev. “Woo-hoo! You hit the broad side of a bantha!”

Now Sev really tried to catapult him onto the floor. But Scorch’s close-combat situational awareness noticed that his brother’s cockstand was holding strong.

“Sev,” he said, panting a little when they’d reached another stalemate, “the only people who know Sun Fac’s name are us, some spooks, and that random forward air controller.”

“Shove off.” Sev kicked him with his boot. He wore them to bed like an animal.

Scorch shook his head. “Not until you take care of yourself.”

“You have some shabla nerve, vod.”

“Rule 45: there should be no happier union than that between a commando and his weapon. But you’ve neglected yours.” He cast a judgemental eye at Sev’s tented pants. They’d been sleeping, shooting, and shitting cheek-by-jowl for their entire lives: Scorch didn’t know why one more bodily function would be that much worse. In that moment, he had more sympathy for his brother’s dick than his brother’s karked-up dignity. Or his own.

He glanced at the chrono. Boss and Fixer still had half an hour at the range and they’d probably hit the mess on the way back. Time enough for a little more equipment maintenance; Scorch believed he was being supremely generous offering what remained of his. He flopped over into a plank above his brother, who was still lying deathly prone. “If you’re not gonna help yourself ...”

“What?” Sev sneered. “You’ll do the honors?”

“Maybe I will. I am better than you, after all,” Scorch grinned. Suddenly, he sensed a game that he wanted to win. They were all like that. Competitive. Not so much against each other, but with each other. Getting screwy Sev off would be the ultimate victory: no one would lose and everyone would leave happy.

“You can’t.” Sev’s disinterest was as threadbare as his pillowcase.

“Alright, vod. I’ll take that bet.” Scorch dug the heel of his hand into his brother’s persistent erection. Sev’s eyelids fluttered. No greater tell in the book. “I bet I can get you off before Boss and Fixer get back. Just this once.”

Sev circled his hands around Scorch’s throat, hissing through perfect teeth bared tight, “You—can’t—Sergeant—Vau—would—”

Scorch scoffed. “You see Sarge here? He’s fucked off to his castle with his kaminii retirement fund.”

Vau had never promised he’d be there on the other side, but ... did he know they’d done a good job? That they’d been singled out for the assassination of the bugs’ chief lieutenant? That they’d survived—no, that they'd excelled, when hundreds of other squads hadn’t? Did he even care? Scorch had to wonder.

He shoved those thoughts aside with conscious effort; they wouldn’t do him any good. Better that Vau wasn't here anyway: he would sniff mightily at this interpretation of no brother left behind. “Hells, he’s probably rubbing one out to a portrait of the dead missus right now,” Scorch continued.

Sev’s grip tightened for their sergeant’s honor. “He wouldn’t—”

“He would. Stars love the old chakaar, Sev, but he’s only flesh and blood.” Actually, that’s all Vau was: cragged skin and blue blood twisted ‘round a frame that seemed to boast a few more bones than average. There must have been a heart in there, too—see: Mird—but Delta had spent their entire cadethood seeking it out to little good. Especially Sev, though he’d slot you for saying so.

Oh, Sev’ika: flesh and blood, plus a lot of bile and bad humor. He stank out the backend when he’d scarfed down too many ration packs, but what would splatter out the front? Scorch was beyond curious now, as he palmed his brother’s package through his clothes.

Sev’s hands held firm, but it was half-hearted, his thumbs only tickling his brother’s trachea. His nostrils flared. He was afraid. No, even better—he was desperate.

It was all the vindication Scorch needed. “That’s right—breathe. Relax. Six-Two’s got you.” He tugged Sev’s fatigues down, hitching the elasticene band behind his balls. Sev grimaced. Yeah, it might not be comfortable yet, but just wait; a little pressure there goes a long way.

“That hurts,” growled Sev.

“Gonna hand me the game?” If Sev had lost sight of his mission objective, he really was gummed up. “Jerking off through a fly feels like doing it in formation,” Scorch said.

Sev turned his head to the wall. If he’d done it at all, that was clearly how.

Scorch took his theoretically-identical brother in hand and felt the heft and heat of a dick that was still an inch left of familiar, however many times he'd seen it. Sev was throbbing. His hands fell away, as deliberately limp as the rest of him, like he was trying to absent himself from his body.

“So ... Sergeant Draka—” Scorch began, realizing he’d just been staring at his brother’s kad for longer than was right. He mentally constructed the fantasy again, deliberately this time, while he warmed up to the idea of working someone else’s shaft. Sev’s shaft. He imagined what Sev might like to hear, because Scorch sure as shab wasn’t keen on hardening up between his brother’s legs himself. That would just be strange. “She’s got you under two hands and a squawking bug under the other, honkin' great tits ready to smother the both of you ...”

Up until he’d found his brother’s cock in his hand, Scorch had fancied himself an honest commando. He really did. Then he had to close the dissonance between his not-insignificant-interest in Sev’s pink tip and, well, Sev: that awkward grump-a-lump who couldn’t look at a sapient or sentient, droid or organic, without scaring them away.

Scorch did it by telling himself this was just his own his cock in a mirror. A learning experience, if nothing else. And his tongue loosened to remember the bet. He began rubbing with intent. “She snaps its neck. Crunch. And isn’t that just your favoritest sound, Sev, ol’ boy?”

“Not her,” Sev said hoarsely.

Manda, he really was giving this to Scorch in the bag. “Who?”

“—don’t know—I don’t shabla know.”

“Easy, vod. You got a lifetime to find out. Well, half of one.”

“Shut. Up.”

Scorch changed the program and flicked a thumbnail right under Sev’s hood. Scratched out whatever dream Sev had building behind his scrunched eyes. It was irrelevant, whatever cleaned the pipes. If his brother didn’t want to say, who was Scorch to ask? The silky give of his hard-on and his nasally gasps vouched that Sev was having an a-okay time. Scorch wouldn’t have a hand, otherwise.

Sev bubbled from his tip. Scorch felt himself flush, but he was more intrigued than anything. It really was like watching a holo of himself. Obviously, Scorch was more handsome, mostly because he wasn’t a fucking psycho ... but a cock was a cock. He lengthened his movement with the slick aid of precome, fisting all the way down to Sev’s slightly lighter curls.

Suddenly, Sev’s fingers wrapped around his. For an alarming half-second, Scorch feared his wrist was about to be snapped. Goodbye dominant hand and superhuman reaction times.

But Sev just held on, eyes pinched shut, arm as unyielding as a barrel.

The situation became more straightforward. Emboldened by the team effort, Scorch stroked faster. Harder. He read the lines in Sev’s fierce face like a manual for a weapon he’d been handed five years ago. A clone lifetime. A batcher’s intuition. He shucked Sev’s sheath down as hard as he could. Twisted his wrist at the top further than Sev’s delicate skin wanted to go. Scorch figured his brother liked the bite of pain. “You feelin’ the heat? You gonna spill all over my fingers, Sev’ika?” he teased.

Sev heaved like he might throw up, and he coughed out only two words. “Do. Not.”

Yeah, he hates that kind of chummy osik and yakking. It was almost sad how much Sev knew what he didn’t want, but couldn’t voice what he did. Even Fixer grunted in approval when something wriggled across the ‘pad’s screen; at least he had some idea what kind of parts he fancied. It was a very broad pool.

Sev just looked embarrassed to be asked.

“Someone’s gonna love your shit, Sev,” Scorch encouraged, coming at it again from a different vector. If he didn’t show his wacky brother some love, who would?

Vau hadn’t been there to bestow that curt nod. They didn’t want to be spoiled. Scorch and his brothers weren’t Skirata’s pups: they’d survived Geonosis because they weren’t. But ... Delta was here and Theta wasn’t and Vau had no karkin’ clue what a close-run thing it’d been. Didn’t know how the knife-edge of his training had probably made all the difference and how chuffed they all were about it.

Or how Sev had made that one-in-a-million shot to Sun Fac’s fighter with half his visor splattered in bug spray. Scorch would remember that for the rest of his short life: angry tendrils of smoke rising behind Sev as he turned contemptuously away from his kill, his helmet gooey with Geonosian.

There were brothers, and there were your brothers: the ones who’d made you better just by being there beside you. Sev was one of those.

Scorch didn’t have to improv osik, now. The words came as easy as his muscle memory as he pistoned his palm along Sev’s angry cock. “Fuckin’ proud of you, Sev: bane of bugs and sniper extraordinaire. Wish Vau could’ve seen it, I really do. I’ll have CLONINT’s guts for rappelling lines for wiping Boss’s cache.”

Sev’s free hand had bunched into the sheet, his knuckles whitening. He stilled suddenly, tense as the second before the opening salvo. Here it comes.

“Ooh, so that’s how Sev breaks. Result!” Scorch had imagined Sev’s orgasm would be like squeezing blood from a stone. Not at all: it came as surely and naturally as his own. Scorch watched intently. Who knew their balls became one in the moment of triumph like that? As Sev’s practically disappeared into his taut body, Scorch had to think on his feet to save his brother’s freshly-laundered fatigues—or, on his knees and elbows, as the case was.

Thunking his other arm across his face, Sev lost the bet with a violent shudder—and without a sound, probably so he couldn’t say he’d enjoyed it. He squirted fully but cleanly onto the open spread of the ‘zine, thanks to Scorch’s management and direction. A long, messy line of cloudy white right across the cross-sectioned barrel of a Magna-Caster-100. Thank fuck for flimsi.

Shaking off Sev's hand, Scorch dropped the wilting cock. It was not attractive, and he prayed the ladies wouldn't think the same, warring with himself about whether he could succumb to the mortification of going limp in someone’s mouth. Maybe it was better to pull out and stripe them? It merited further research on Fixer’s ‘pad, just in case.

“Target softened. Should make things easier for you. Hope you took notes,” Scorch said, oddly transfixed by the description of the ‘Caster’s invisible quarrels he’d spotted on the page. He was growing itchy for a time-sensitive rummage—Scorch would wager his lower left nut that Delta could now go toe-to-toe with any of Draka’s squads for acquisition. With any luck, this mysterious upcoming op would net them some exotic toys.

He shifted his weight, feeling the need to move before that idea made him stiff again and everyone got the wrong impression.

“‘m not soft, di’kut,” Sev mumbled from underneath his arm.

Scorch patted his thigh. “Sure you’re not.”

“Getting soft will get us popped.”

Scorch was halfway off the bunk, but he stopped to squeeze Sev’s fucked-up head. “Hey, ner vod. Look at me—look at me,” he demanded. Sev let his arm fall behind his curls but he kept his gaze elsewhere. “No need to quote Sarge to me. Or go grey over stupid stuff like him.”

Stuff like distraction—a dirty word in Vau’s lexicon. What did they have to get distracted by, anyhow? Grainy holovids? They had enough room in their over-engineered skulls for a few of those, and if they ever got to touch the real thing, Scorch figured they wouldn’t lose their heads. Right? Civvies were so unexceptional, after all. Probably couldn’t tell a maranium blast from a benign xenon light sculpture. Brothers, especially your fellow commandos, were the only company worth keeping—even Vau said so, and Skirata had said Vau had wined and dined New Mando aristos and had bedded a fekkin’ princess in a past life.

Eventually, Sev’s sour mug puckered in something like thought. “If you fucked up my range scores, I’m going to piss in your pack.”

Scorch laughed, dumping his feet onto the floor and wandering in the direction of Boss’s ration bars. Mess was a whole two hours away and Scorch had a month’s eating to make up for. “Sev’ika, no one could fuck up your range scores. You just pregamed with Lasers & Blasters.”

The ‘zine smacked the back of Scorch’s head, wet side flat.

Yeah, we're still good, Scorch thought, as he finally manhandled his stroppy brother onto the floor. And we always will be.

(also on Ao3)

#republic commando #delta squad #repcomm #sev #scorch #clonecest #biscuit fic