#i will find you. and i will display each of your vertebra on my wall like they do with butterflies.

[wasyago]

kakashi and bull 🥺🤲

#realized that i don't actually know how to draw dogs so i wanted to practice. and who's better for that than mr dog lover kashi #(and yes i know my persona is a dog and i can't draw dogs. ironic isn't it) #i wanna make a small series of drawings of kashi and all his ninken but this is the only one i have so far. we'll see how it goes #naruto #kakashi hatake #my art #sketch #also if anyone writes 'oh haha i thought it was etho' under this - #i will find you. and i will display each of your vertebra on my wall like they do with butterflies.

[jangofctts]

Ma’am I’m dying out here. It’s always “Void will wreck you in the fresher” and “Void has the third best stroke game of the squad” but never “Here I wrote a lil blurb of Void wrecking your shit”

Please I need we need it

smH YOURE RIGHT IVE BEEN DENYING YALL KJEKEJH

ct-7775 void // fem!reader

warnings: shower sex 

You’re not quite sure when this became a regular occurrence--a couple months ago you think. Sorta like date night, except in the fresher...naked and undoubtedly against regulations. That’s what makes it fun you suppose--a little late night thrill.   

Not like anyone would find you, you specifically chose time slots around midnight so you’d have the entire fresher block to yourself--an ingenious idea and totally worth waking up with wet hair in the morning. You just--well you didn't expect someone else to have the same idea. Safe to say it was a little jarring to cross paths naked and afraid, soaped up and scrambling for a towel with Sunburst squadron’s finest and only medic. Void. 

To be fair, he hadn't even seen you. It was the end of your shift, tunnel vision on one thing, and one thing only. A nice hot fresher and certainly not a naked you. 

With neither of you willing to budge and shuffle around schedules, you came to the brilliant conclusion that you could both shower at the same times--just so long as you both kept your eyes to yourselves. Funny how that rule barely lasted two weeks.    

Safe to say, it’s been the best sex you’ve ever had. And all done in a fresher for kriff’s sake. 

Once or twice every week you have Void all to yourself--that permanent scowl and grumpy mannerisms washing away with the flow of water and the warmth of your skin. A completely different man--one briefly unburdened with the weight of keeping his brothers alive and well just to send them off to battle the next day. You don’t mind being his distraction--as fleeting as it may be.   

Tonight is no different as the solid line of his body slips in behind you, filling in the limited amount of space left in the tiny space. And you mean tiny. You can move without challenging your flexibility or banging your elbows and knees against the walls.

The touch of Void’s palm over your ribcage pulls a pleased sigh from your lungs. His fingers tickle up your shoulder blade and sweeps your hair, plastered to the nape of your neck, to the side. “Let me see you...”

You turn without hesitation, giggling as Void’s hand cups your cheek, his thumbs jumping up to smooth down your eyebrows and wick away the rivulets of water. Before you have the chance to greet him, Void tugs you forward into a deep, toe-curling kiss, shuddering as the cool durasteel of the wall touches your back. You break away and place your palm over his cheek. leans into your palm and smiles as your thumb lands right over the little blue dot tattooed onto his cheek.

“How was it today?”

“Sweets got a splinter and Fuse burned himself playing with matches again.” Void grumbles, sliding his other hand up to cup one of your breasts. He pinches your nipple and rolls it between his forefinger and thumb, plucking out a gasp from your parted lips. “All I could think about was you--always distractin’ me.”  

You roll your eyes. “Boohoo--baby is distracted by my tits. You’re lucky I like you.”  

Void buries his face into the crook of your neck, nips at your ear and hooks his arm around your waist. “Mhm. If I accidentally kill someone, s’because of you.”  

You slide your fingers through his hair, a bit long once it’s wet and free from his headband--you give the strands a playful jostle. Void tilts his head, skims his lips over the line of jaw and steals another kiss--when he pulls away he hesitates here for a moment--simply drinking in the shape of you, every freckle and little wrinkle, grafting it into his memory for eternity. It’s a two way mirror however--

The bags under his eyes, like two swaths of purpling bruisers, are worse than last week and Maker--do they ever give this man a break? “Void--when’s the last time you slept?”

He blinks rapidly and shoves his head back into the crux of your shoulder to avoid your scrutiny. “Don’t worry about it.”

You frown. You’ll push him about it later, because right now? He’s trailing tiny, addicting kisses from your shoulder up to your ear, your blood already singing even though the chaste pecks border innocent. You gasp as those kisses morph into nips, sucking sure to be bruises into the flesh, marking you just below the line of where the collar of your uniform ends.

The arm around your waist skims further down, grabbing a handful of your ass and roughly squeezing.  You whimper, curling further into his hold as liquid heat races from the pit of your stomach and outward to each and every limb. He worms his muscled thigh between your legs, pinning you further against the wall, the hand on your ass snaking back to massage tiny circles over your thigh. You whimper and thread your fingers into the wet strands of his hair, arching into his chest.

“Fuck--you’re a vision,” Void pants, “So beautiful.”  

He moans low in the back of his throat as your hand gently encompasses his cock, thick and swelling to its full length in your palm. “I could say the same about you, handsome.”

 Void shudders and sags into your hold, huffing out curses and roughly parting your thighs further apart. You whine and press your head into the wall as he hikes your thigh up and around his hip. He then slides two of those thick, calloused fingers pass over your clit, throbbing and aching to be touched. Your own slick mixed with the aide of the water let the two digits glide with ease over your lips, rocking down to circle your clenching entrance then back to lightly trace the little bundle of nerves.

His cock jumps in your grip as you whine his name, needy and desperate as you roll your palm up and down his cock. He curses under his breath, and bites your earlobe. “You want me to fuck you, sweetheart?”

You groan as he pushes a finger into your cunt, the muscles squeezing around him for just a shred of pleasure. “Yes--please, Void--fuck me.”

“Such a filthy mouth.” He chastises with a dark chuckle.

You groan out your frustration as you roll your hips, your nails digging into his bicep to pull him closer. He must take pity on your squirming, pathetic display as he abruptly extracts his finger and drops your thigh. 

Your stomach drops as your bare feet slip off the tiles, yet the heavy muscled weight of Void’s chest pinning you forward saves you from landing ass over heels. He’s stronger than he looks, a fact you’re confronted with as he scoops your knee over his elbow and squishing you further into the wall. “Careful, mesh’la--wouldn’t want a trip to med bay, now would we?”  

You swear and dig you nails into his shoulder, slippery from the water. He grips his cock in one hand and slides the thick head over the wet slit of your cunt, the tip of him catching against your dripping entrance.

You jerk and press your hips back. “V-Void…”

Your breath catches in your throat as the very tip of him, searing hot and harder than tempered steel, pushes into you. It feels the same with each time he fucks you, that pinch and fluttering panic low in your stomach that he’s too big. You squirm and whine as he rocks his hips forward, the little motions seating him deeper into your greedy center. Maker— you think it’ll go on forever, with no room to accommodate him.

“There you go,” he babbles, his breathing a mess of pitchy moans and praise, muffled by the spray of water. “Fuck—such a good girl. Taking it all.”

You shiver despite the temperature of the water, twitching in his hold as the narrow dip of his waist slots against your cunt. Your name flows past his lips, the enamel of his teeth tugging at the fragile skin lining the base of your neck.

Stars— your thoughts are pulverized into dust with the first tentative rolls of his hips. There’s no buildup to the pace he sets or patience as his fingers dig into your ass while the other anchors to the wall. 

It’s a ridiculously short amount of time, you think, as your orgasm creeps down each vertebrae, your cunt clamping down on his cock tighter than a fucking vice. One last roll against your clit and you’re done for. So fucking gone.    

The edges of your entire universe drop off into some unknown mystery--bursts of white light igniting behind your eyelids as you're brought over the edge.

“Shit—get so fucking wet when you cum,” Void snarls. “And tight. S-so fucking tight.”

You’re not allowed to float down from your high, not until he also reaches his end. Until then you’re forced through the rough scrap of the last dregs of your pleasure, his abdomen scraping agains your throbbing clit. The loud, wet slaps of his hips meeting your cunt echoes in the tiny space, accentuates every hitched moan and sharp whimper. Void’s hand slips off the wall and buries it into your hair at the base of your skull, tugging sharply as your core clenches around his cock.

“M’close,” he pants, his breath humid against your skin. “Can I—fuck--can I cum in you?”

You nod with a shuddering whine. 

Your nerves burn as you slip your own hand down to toy with your clit, a simple brush over the nerves and your careening off the edge again. Your cries are a jumble of incomprehensible babbles--the only thing you manage to latch onto is his name. 

With a dangerously loud curse, Void’s bruising pace quickens, frantic as he chases his own release. Void’s hips stutter, the hand in your hair tightening into a fist as his teeth embed themselves over your shoulder. With one—two last thrusts of his hips, he cums. Ropes of his release coats your insides, throbbing and twitching until he’s spent, left with the ambiance of quick panting and the trickle of water.

Stars, you can’t fucking think.  

With a grunt he stumbles back as much as he can in the limited space, the absence of his cock leaving his cum to dribble out and slip down the inside of your thigh. You’re still squeezing your eyes shut, jittery and unable to move from your current spot without the risk of stumbling to your knees.

Void dips his head and steals a kiss, dragging his tongue deep into your mouth. He groans and keeps you here, leading you through soft kisses and a careful dance of something more than just a simple fuck in a fresher. You’re not sure if you’re allowed to breach that gentle space between you—grasp something tangible with uncertain promises and stolen minutes as sunlight fills the space between your heart and lungs.

He kisses your cheek, breaking away before either of you slip and tumble into uncharted territory. Another time maybe—not in the middle of a war and certainly not in a communal shower.

“Thank you,” he murmurs. And it’s enough—it has to be enough.

#HERE IS MY INSANE RAMBLES HEKDBD #oOf #ask #keida answers #sunburst squadron #my writing #clone trooper x reader #clone oc x reader #clone oc

[nhl-stories]

Don’t Write an Elegy (part four) – Ryan Graves

Masterlist

Author’s Note: We all knew Ryan could move but the Devils trade still got me reeling, so even more of a reason to get in my feels

Word Count: 3.1k

…It might be simple, it might be true, I might be overwhelmed by you…

Something shifted between us. It felt like we were falling in love again; or maybe just remembered what we love about each other.

But she still felt far away, like there’s an invisible wall separating us. Sure, I can’t quite reach her, but it’s the closest I’d been in months and it’s so intoxicating I can ignore the red flags.

Maybe that’s been my problem this whole time.

I don’t feel the need to tiptoe around my house anymore, out of fear that one wrong move will send her packing and out of my life forever.

In fact, it’s made me bolder than usually, a confidence I thought I’d forgotten.

I make my way to the guest room, I still refuse to refer to it as her room, my pride is still fragile.

I knock lightly but get no answer. I peek in and my breath hitches. The sun is barley coming in the room but gives a serene glow to Gretchen. Her naked back is turned towards me, most of her tattoos on display.

I used to know all her ink by heart: the half sleeve of a sea monster pulling a ship to the depths of the ocean, the mayflowers along her rib cage, the dumb at home tattoos of lobsters and middle fingers and beer cans and more dotting her body. Now their placements seem fuzzy in my mind, like figment of my imagination.

But my favorite tattoo is front and center from my view. Bliss. The word spreading down her back, each letter punctuating a vertebra. I’m in a trance as I glide to the bed and sit on the edge. I want to reach out and touch it, glide my finger along her spine, kiss my up her back like I used to, but my boldness evaporates at the closeness.

I gently touch her shoulder and she flinches before giving me a sleepy smile. Pulling up the sheets to cover her chest.

“I’m going to store if you need anything,” I know I could have texted this and let her sleep but I want the proximity.

“Uh- can I come with you?” she yawns, “I’m starving and don’t want to cook.”

My heart lurches forward, I’m lovesick.

“Of course.”

We find our way to a restaurant we used to go to all the time; one of the waitresses exclaims in excitement that we’re back here together.

Gretchen is sipping on a milkshake; she looks up at me with her lips closed around the straw and my insides feel molten. My expression must be giving away my dirty thoughts because she snorts a laugh and gives me a kick under the table.

“So, Mel has been asking me to go to a game with her...”

“Yeah?” I’m not entirely sure how to respond, but my interest is piqued.

“Mmhmm, and I think I’m gonna go. As long as you’re okay with it.”

“Of course, I’m fine with it, I’m more than fine with it,” I can’t stop from grinning, “I’m the one rooting for this marriage so I’m team you being involved in anything.”

I immediately regret saying the last part out loud. I scrunch up my eyes and pray that I can just evaporate.

“Do you think Ryan Graves will throw me a puck during warm ups, he’s my favorite player. We have the same last name,” she gives me a sympathetic smile as she chooses to ignore the comment.

Just a few weeks ago she would’ve stormed out of the restaurant if I said something like that.

I compose myself before joining in on the joke, “I heard he’s not a fan of puck bunnies.”

She kicks my shin, “Just for that Cale’s my favorite defensemen again.”

“I don’t know why he wasn’t already your favorite.”

A couple of days later she’s at the game. It’s the sort of motivation I’ve been missing. I’m not exactly sure where she’s sitting, but there’s a new spark of electricity in the air. I know it’s because of her.

I get an assist and score a goal.

“So close to a Gordie Howe tonight,” is first thing she says when she sees me outside the locker room.

She’s in my jersey and I’m not sure if I want to cry at the gesture or throw her against the wall and have my way with her.

“I would have loved to see you get feral out there and fight someone,” she gives me a fake one-two punch before wrapping her arms around my shoulders and giving me a peck.

I pull her back in and deepen the kiss. We’re interrupted by the loud coos from a group of the wives. We separate and Gretchen flips off the group before wrapping her arms around my waist, I sling my arm around her shoulder and pull her closer. If anyone had suspicions about our relationship they were being silenced now.

Mel comes over, “Please tell me you guys are coming out, we got the sitter until 2 AM and it’s been so long since I’ve danced with my favorite Gravy.”

“Mel, Ryan can’t dance,” Gretchen laughs and gives me a playful squeeze, “But yeah it’s been a long time so we’ll be there.”

It’s the first time Gretchen has been around the team since the party at the Landeskog’s and this time around feels so different. The fluttering in my stomach isn’t making me nauseous and anxious, it’s making me feel giddy.

Gretchen stays pretty close to me the whole night, it’s the first time I don’t feel her pulling away in an eternity. The invisible tether between isn’t pulled so tight it might snap.

Eventually, she made it out onto the dance floor with Mel and some of the significant others and of course Tyson. At one point she even managed to convince Cale to come dance with them, though he was pretty quick to escape the group.

“So, car sex was the fix you needed?” Nate slides into the booth, pushing a drink in front of me.

I roll my eyes and laugh, “Honestly I wish I could tell you what brought on this, but I also don’t really want to question it.”

“It’s the happiest I’ve seen her in a long time,” he smiles as he follows my eyes, still glued to her on the dance floor, having the time of her life, “but I guess I’m a bad friend and didn’t really notice how unhappy she was in the first place.”

“She’s very good at hiding things.”

“I could say the same about you,” he pauses to take a drink, “I didn’t realize you were hurting until you were already broken.”

I shrug, I want to get away from this conversation; it’s bringing me down.

“But I’m glad you two are getting help, it’s clearly working,” he nods his head towards Gretchen, who’s stumbling and laughing her way over to us.

I had been so distracted by her company I must have missed how much she drank, because she’s clearly trashed.

“Nate Dogg why didn’t you come dance with us?” She slurs as she flops next to me in booth.

“Someone had to keep your man company,” he grins.

Tyson joins us, complaining about striking out at the bar. This has Gretchen launching into a monologue about being his wing woman. We humor her babbling for a bit before steering the conversation in a new direction

That seems to take the steam out of her, all the alcohol catching up with her at once. She sporadically adds to the conversation as she rests her head on my shoulder.

Soon the weight on my shoulder is impossible to ignore and I glance down to see her eyelids fluttering as she fights off sleep.

“I think it’s time we get you home,” I chuckle and give her a gentle shrug off my shoulder.

“What? No! We’re all having fun.”

“I think you’ll be mad in the morning if I let you fall asleep in a bar.”

She dramatically rolls her eyes, “Fine.”

I help her out of the booth and hold her up when her jello legs can’t hold her up straight.

“Bye everyone, love you!” She shouts to the remaining group and waves so big she nearly smacks me in the face.

The loud goodbye saps her energy so quickly she’s practically asleep the moment I shut the passenger door behind her.

“I had fun tonight,” she mumbles as she readjusts herself against the window.

“Yeah, I’m glad you came. I’ve missed us.” I whisper the last part, not wanting to break this spell.

As if by fate our wedding song is the first to come up on shuffle.

Come with me my love To the sea The sea of love I want to tell you How much I love you

The lyrics float through the car and I can’t help reaching over to grab Gretchen’s hand. She doesn’t open her eyes but she gives it a squeeze, I want to freeze time and savor this moment of bliss.

She’s fully out by the time we make it home and I don’t have the heart to wake her up, so instead I pick her up and carry her into the house. I struggle up the stairs and wish I would have focused more on weightlifting in recently.

I set her down on the guest bed and begin digging around the drawers looking for something for her to sleep in.

“No, this isn’t my bed,” she scrunches up her face as she squirms away from me and the clothes I’m holding out, “I want mybed, Ryan.”

Initially want to argue, I’m not entirely sure why, but I bring her into our bedroom anyway. Getting her changed into a large t-shirt and tucking her in on what always was her side.

I get out of my game day suit and gingerly crawl into my side, I stare up at the ceiling and lay there stiffly, waiting for her to have an adverse reaction, wake up from this trance and think this is all wrong. Instead, she rolls over towards me and cuddles deeper into her pillow.

…I don't need any help to be breakable, believe me…

I woke up to the sound of the piano drifting through the house. It feels so foreign but so familiar it’s like an out of body experience. Maybe it was. Or maybe I died and this was my version of heaven.

The last week had been a dream. It didn’t feel faked, she was authentic and happy. The ethereal feeling didn’t leave me as I made my way downstairs. There she is, the love of my life finally playing the piano I gave her. I feel overwhelmed by all my emotions.

She finally looks up and gives me a smile that warms my insides, she doesn’t stop playing.

“This is such a nice piano.”

“What’s the difference between this and a shit piano?”

“You know, the sound, the feel, it’s just nice.”

She plays for a few more seconds before stopping, “Can I meet you at our appointment today? I have some errands to run.”

“Sure, I have to go to a team meeting, so I’ll see you later?”

She nods. I kiss the top of her head while she continues to play.

I’m early for the team meeting, and find a spot next to Cale.

“Someone is way too happy for a video session,” he has a cheeky grin.

“What can I say, life is good.”

“Told you to be optimistic, good things come from good thoughts.”

“Graves, you’ve been looking lighter out there, whatever you’re doing different keep it up,” Coach Bednar says as he walks into the room.

If I wasn’t already flying high, it only got better when I arrived to our appointment and our legs were touching on the couch.

Dr. Willis smirked at the small confirmation of progress.

“Since you cancelled our last session,” she eyes the lack of space between us, “let’s get right into it.”

“I told you two to exchange books, so let’s start with Gretchen. What did Ryan have you read and what did you think?”

“He gave me the Tao of Pooh, which I didn’t know he read, but it’s my best friend’s favorite book. Apparently, she gave it to him behind my back and he enjoyed it enough,”

“Behind your back makes it sound nefarious,” I laugh, “She gave it to me when I moved across the country and you were on tour with her band. To keep me company and sane, I guess.”

Willis’ eyes ping pong between us.

“Yes, I know, it’s just kind of cool that two people I’m so close to have that kind of relationship. I mostly see Tessa on the road and didn’t really know you two talked so knowing you guys talk about books and that she cares about your well-being, it was a nice surprise.”

“As your best friend I think she knows my well-being affects your well-being more than anything.”

I’m aware in the corner of my eye our therapist writing some things down, but it felt like we’re talking in a little bubble.

“And what did you get out of the book Gretchen?” Dr. Willis almost looks like she’ll smile.

“That everyone in my life thinks I need to chill the fuck out?” She bumps my shoulder, “but I guess really just remember to enjoy the little things and go with the flow a little more.”

“And maybe in the last year or so I’ve lost sight of some of that and Tessa saw that and wanted me to read that, but also that maybe both of us lost sight of the little things,” she puts her hand on knee and gives it a little squeeze.

This was the moment I’d been dreaming about, some sort of epiphany where she realized that the last decade was not something to just throw away, that we were worth the work.

“Also picturing Ryan reading about Winnie-the-Pooh on the team plane is stupid cute.”

“And Ryan what did you read,” the quick segue is probably making Gretchen roll her eyes.

“Oh, Gretch gave me Ghost World, which apparently she was reading on our first date.���

“And your thoughts?”

“It was funny and weird and dark, but so was Gretchen in high school so it makes sense. I don’t love that at its essence it’s about two people who have been friends for a long time who just grow a part, but I understand that it feels relatable right about now.”

“I also don’t love that the main character kills herself at the end though.”

“Enid doesn’t kill herself,” Gretchen protests, “she goes off to live a new life.”

“Well, it felt like she said bye to everyone and went off to kill herself.”

“I guess you can read it however you want,” she smirks.

In hindsight I should have thought more about what I said next. Tip-toed into the subject, but I thought Gretchen had given me an opening.

“And it was Marianne’s book originally and it was nice to kind of get some glimpse at who she really was and how she influenced you. It made me feel closer to you.”

The space between us grows by an inch.

“Who’s Marianne?”

“Nobody,” Gretchen says at the same time I say, “her sister.”

The doctor writes for a second leaving the moment to hang vilely in the air. Any progress we made is crumbling away in my hands.

“Gretchen if this is a subject about past trauma it can be informing the problems you’re having now, even if you don’t realize it.”

She ignores the doctor’s comment, “Ryan she’s not yours to talk about, she’s my family and if I wanted to talk about her, I’d bring it up. She has nothing to do with us,” she raises her voice, causing me to flinch.

“We’re family Gretchen,” I say as evenly as I can with a boulder lodged in my throat.

“If you want therapy to work, we have to talk about the uncomfortable. And based on your reaction this still has a huge impact on you and by proxy Ryan.”

She turns towards Dr. Willis and lets out a dramatic huff, “Marianne is my sister. She got pregnant when she was 16 and she decided to put a bunch of rocks in her pockets and walk into the ocean.”

The space between us keeps growing.

“A fisherman found her and my parents made her keep the baby. So, she had it and then she ran away. I was 10. We raised my nephew as my little brother and everyone in town just went with it.”

Marianne was town lore; I knew the story. She was a bit of a rebel in our town, always getting into trouble. Eventually, that trouble was getting pregnant. I remember her sister growing more and more pregnant and more and more miserable. I remember the rumors around town about who was the father. About how she’d corrupt the whole town.

But I never heard any of this from Gretchen.

“And you think something this big happening to you hasn’t affected your relationship with Ryan at all? Not even subconsciously?”

“It is kind of the reason people didn’t want us together, they thought you were becoming like Marianne,” I half mumble the words.

I don’t want to twist the knife, she’s already so distressed in a way I’ve never seen, but it feels important. This part of her that she’s hidden away in the most secret part of her mind, I want to hear it.

“I saw all sorts of shrinks when I was younger, and the last thing I need is a rehashing of it in some weird attempt to fix my marriage.” She grabs her bag and storms out of the room.

When I get home, Gretchen isn’t there. I’m not surprised, but it still worries me.

I text her, I’m home, hope you’re okay. Sorry about bringing up Marianne, but I meant what I said, it was nice to learn a little about her and how important she was to you. Just let me know you’re ok, love you.

I don’t hear back for an hour, I’m fine, I’m going to stay somewhere else until you leave for your road trip, I think it’s best we have our space before someone says something they can’t take back.

After all the emotions of the day I feel exhausted and decide to call it a night even though it’s barely 4 PM. I crawl into my lonely, cold bed and cry myself to sleep. It’s getting harder and harder to see a way out of this abyss.

#ryan graves #ryan graves fic #ryan graves story #ryan graves imagines #colorado avalanche fic #new jersey devils fic #damn that's weird to type #don't write an elegy #nhl story #nhl imagine #nhl fics #nhl imagines #hockey writing #hockey story #hockey imagines

[vannahfanfics]

Doting

Category: General Fluff

Fandom: My Hero Academia

Characters: Eri, Shota Aizawa, Toshinori Yagi

Hey, everyone! I am super excited to present my story for the EraserMight Mini-Bang! I had two wonderful partners for this event, Cam and apricot, and you can find their arts here and here! 

Shota pushed himself away from his desk with a groan, rubbing his tired eyes with the heels of his palms. The joints of his fingers ached from hours of tapping away at a keyboard, yet Shota still had quite a ways to go before he finished constructing the term’s report on his class’ progress for the administration. There was a lot to discuss, especially with the persistent villain activity inadvertently causing them to show explosive growth, and this report would be a verifiable thesis by the time that the teacher finished. However, despite the pain of the assignment, Shota could not help but feel proud that his students were displaying such advancement that he could fill pages upon pages with praise for them. 

Right as he gathered the will to get back to work, he heard the pitter-patter of little feet. His lips immediately curled into a smile, partly because of the adorable sound and partly because of the realization that he wouldn’t be getting back to work anytime soon. He swiveled in the desk chair just as Eri came trotting through the door, her long silvery-white hair swishing around her knees and the stuffed bunny that Nemuri had bought for her not too long ago clutched in her hand. She was dressed in a pair of worn blue overalls with a pink-and-white spotted shirt underneath, complete with some cute pink-and-white sneakers. She did look very cute, so Shota mentally thanked Nemuri for her fashion sense. 

“Eraserhead!” the girl cried, running right up to him to grip his knee with sparkling red eyes. Using the other arm, she hugged the bunny to her chest; its fur was beginning to fray and become tinged with dirt, and Shota would have to pry it out of her arms to throw it in the wash soon. I’m beginning to think like a doting parent, he thought in amusement. He supposed someone had to for the little girl. He leaned forward as she gazed up at him expectantly. “Eraserhead, did you forget? You’re supposed to take me to the park today!” 

Oh shit. Shota had forgotten. Still, he wasn’t going to let Eri know that. 

“Of course not,” he said smoothly, straightening up and ruffling her hair affectionately. The edges of Eri’s smile curled up happily as his large, calloused hand weaved through the silky silvery-white strands. “I was just finishing up some schoolwork. Did you bring the stuff to do your hair?” 

Eri nodded and dug into the pockets of her overalls to reveal a small brush and a collection of barrettes and ponytails. She dropped them onto the computer desk while Shota stood from his chair, stretching his arms above his head and bending back slightly. He groaned in satisfaction as his vertebrae popped in succession, alleviating the stiff pain that had made a home in his spine. “All right. Let’s get Midnight so she can… Oh.” His voice faltered as he looked around the teacher’s lounge only to find that it was empty aside from himself and the child. A spike of panic gushed through his blood vessels, filling him with cold dread. 

“Um… Eraserhead, Miss Midnight isn’t here, and neither is Mister Mic. Who’s gonna do my hair?” Eri asked while spinning a lock of her hair around her tiny index finger. Shota gulped, wracking his brain frantically. He always recruited Nemuri or Hizashi to style the child’s hair; Shota didn’t possess the delicateness for that. They’d obviously headed home while he was busy typing up his report, and they wouldn’t appreciate being dragged all the way back just to do Eri’s hair. He sucked in a breath through his nose, resigning himself to the task ahead of him. 

Then he flopped back down on the chair and patted his thigh as an indication for Eri to climb into his lap. 

“I am.” 

Eri scrunched her eyes suspiciously, looking very perturbed by the development. Still, she obediently moved to clamber into his lap. She continued to clutch the bunny, so she only had one hand to grip the arm of the chair and try to haul herself up. After a few times of slipping back down, Shota just grabbed her underneath her armpits and pulled her up to settle him on his lap. She settled herself in, sitting the bunny on her lap and smoothing down its ears. 

“I’m gonna do Bunny’s hair, then,” she chirped while grabbing one of the barrettes to clip it to the tuft of white fur atop the stuffed animal’s head. Shota chuckled— she really was cute— but all the adorableness in the world wasn’t going to save him from the daunting trial before him. While Eri busied herself with using her fingers to comb through the stuffed bunny’s fur, Shota’s hands hovered over her mane of silvery hair, not even sure where to begin. 

A brush. A brush is a good start, he decided. Shota picked up the brush and began teasing it through Eri’s hair, careful not to tug too hard and hurt her while easing out the knots. Eri hummed and kicked her heels against the computer chair as she played with her bunny, and he was grateful that he could at least do that right. Eventually, though, the brush glided seamlessly through the silky strands, and Shota couldn’t put off the inevitable forever. 

He awkwardly bunched up a chunk of her hair and secured it with a ponytail, then let it go. It flopped loosely against her head with a few strands sticking out at odd angles. 

He tugged it free with a heavy sigh, running his other hand over his eyes. This is going to be harder than I thought. 

“Eraserhead? You’re here awfully late,” a voice piped up suddenly. 

Shota looked over the walls of his cubby to see Toshinori strolling in, his coat draped over his skinny arm. When Eri heard his voice, she sat up on Shota’s legs to crane her head over the cubby wall and wave happily. 

“Hello, Mister All Might!” 

“Why, hello there, Eri. You look lovely today,” the teacher smiled as he walked around the desks to greet her. Giggling, Eri flopped back down on Shota’s lap and held up her bunny, which had several barrettes stuck in the tuft of cottony fur on its head. “Oh, Mr. Bunny looks great today, too. Did you do his hair?” he asked, squatting down to inspect the stuffed animal appraisingly. 

“Yeah! Eraserhead is supposed to be doing my hair, but he seems to be having trouble.” 

Shota covered his face with a hand as it turned bright pink with embarrassment. Kids really had no filter. Toshinori chuckled and straightened up, giving Shota a sympathetic look. 

“Well, cut him some slack. I’m sure he just wants to make sure it looks extra perfect.” 

Damn, he’s really good with kids. He knows the perfect things to say, Shota marveled, an eyebrow inching up his head as a plan hatched in his mind. Toshinori didn’t have children— at least not that Shota knew of— but perhaps the man had a little bit more experience in the complex art of doing little girls’ hair. Toshinori seemed to sense Shota’s great discomfort with the situation, as he shuffled around to the side of the chair to survey the barrettes and clips littering the desk. 

“Eraserhead, would you like some help?” 

“Oh, God, yes,” Shota blurted immediately, too overwhelmed with relief to maintain some sense of dignity. 

Toshinori chuckled and retrieved the brush, leaning over Shota’s shoulder while he began brushing Eri’s hair to gather it into one big hand. 

“I can’t say I’m familiar with things like this, but it can’t hurt to try,” he smiled. “How about we try some pigtails, Eri?” 

“Okay!” 

Shota reclined in the chair, melting with relief as he began to think that his dilemma may just be solved. 

However, it soon became clear that Toshinori was about as familiar with doing little girls’ hair as Shota. When he stepped back, one of the pigtails was much bigger than the other, and the left one sat at least two inches lower than the right. Toshinori smiled sheepishly when Eri tugged at the skinny pigtail, then looked at him doubtfully. 

“Um… I don’t think this is right…” 

“I’m sorry,” Toshinori groaned, his shoulders falling as he tipped back his head in defeat. “It seems that there is more nuance to this than I realized…” Sighing, Shota slipped the ponytails out of her hair, letting the waves of silver hair fall loose for them to start over. 

“All right. It’s time to pull out the big guns,” Shota decided. He grabbed his phone to pull up the ultimate source of information on the Internet— YouTube. Many young fathers and mothers posted tutorials on doing their daughters’ hair for those who were new to the game. Shota was more than willing to swallow his pride and peruse the videos rather than continue embarrassing himself. He picked a promising video and propped it up, and he and Toshinori watched the tutorial with great interest. The man pulled his daughter’s hair into perfect pigtails with almost frightening ease, talking through it step-by-step. 

“Well, he certainly doesn’t make it sound hard,” Toshinori frowned and looked back to Eri’s mane of silvery-white hair. His doubtful look certainly didn’t inspire much confidence. 

After taking a deep breath, Shota restarted the video and tried to replicate the father’s actions. It turned out better than Toshinori’s attempt, but the pigtails were still a little uneven and lopsided. Eri looked back at him when he pulled her hair free again, looking perturbed. 

“Eraserhead, it’s okay…. You don’t have to do my hair. We can just go to the park…” 

“No. You said you wanted your hair done, so I’m going to do it,” Shota asserted firmly and started the video over again. It was really less about making Eri happy and more that he was frustrated he couldn’t do something so simple as pigtails. His heart went out to all the single fathers out there bungling through the same struggle. Eri turned back around, pouting a little, but Shota was determined. 

This time, he and Toshinori did one side each. 

“Did… Did we do it?” Toshinori asked hesitantly as Eri shook her head back and forth slightly. Her pigtails swished over her shoulders; they sure looked even, and the ponytails didn’t slip free with her movements. 

“I think so,” Shota said with relief, sinking into the chair. He picked up two pink flower barrettes and clipped them onto the ponytails, and Eri reached up to touch the smooth plastic with her fingertips. 

“Well, Eri? Did we do a good job this time?” he said as he pulled up his cellphone camera and allowed her to look at her reflection. She grabbed the phone with her small hands to inspect herself, and Shota felt his heart flutter with happiness when she beamed wide in the screen. 

“Yeah! It looks great!” she nodded. “Can we all take a picture together?” 

“Sure.” They adjusted themselves so they could all fit in the frame, with Shota’s arm slung around Eri’s waist and Toshinori over his shoulder, smiling shyly and throwing up a peace sign. Eri was smiling hugely, her eyes scrunched up with delight. She immediately grabbed at the phone to look as the shutter sounded, squealing happily at the photograph. Shota stroked one of her pigtails as she kicked her feet excitedly. 

“Thanks, Eraserhead, Mister All Might! I love it,” Eri said, then gave Shota his phone back. She slid down from the chair, clutching her bunny to her chest, and then looked up at Shota hopefully. “Can we go to the park now?” 

“Yes, yes,” Shota said, patting his legs before rising from the chair. He winced, the stiffness from his hours in the chair returning with a vengeance. He rubbed his sore back muscles with a groan, then looked at Toshinori with a wan smile. “Thanks for your help.” 

“Oh, of course!” Toshinori replied, waving his hands submissively. He then smiled down at Eri and flashed her a wink. “I couldn’t leave a lady in such distress, after all.” Eri giggled, hugging her rabbit, and then wiggled shyly. 

“Mister All Might, would you like to go to the park with us, too?” 

Toshinori pretended to think about it for a second, putting his hand on his chin and looking up at the ceiling. Eri frowned at his silence, her lips beginning to poke out into a pout. He then grinned widely. 

“Of course! It’s a wonderful day. In fact, I think I just might have enough money for ice cream afterward…” 

“Yay! Did you hear that, Eraserhead? Ice cream!” she squealed delightedly. She spun on her toes, holding her bunny over her head, before sprinting out of the room demanding, “Come on, come on!” Shota chuckled at her instantaneous burst of energy and shook his head at Toshinori. 

“Wow. She’s going to end up spoiled if she starts to hang out with you more.” 

“I can’t help it. Little kids are my ultimate weakness,” the blond laughed, rubbing the back of his neck. He smiled fondly, watching as Eri jumped back into the doorframe to beg for them to hurry up. “Besides, after what she’s been through… Doesn’t she deserve to be?” 

“Yeah,” Shota nodded and slipped his hands in his pockets. “She really does.” 

He supposed he had better learn how to do her hair soon, for he had a feeling he’d be taking more trips to the park as time went on. He really was starting to think like a doting parent, but that was okay. That was no less than what Eri deserved.

Enjoy this oneshot? Feel free to peruse my Table of Contents!

#erasermight #shota aizawa #aizawa shota #toshinori yagi #yagi toshinori #eri #my hero academia #mha #boku no hero academia #bnha

[ask-the-riders]

Liar, Liar

Another flashback sorta thing that I decided to write as a way to explore some different relationship dynamics :P

There's some recently introduced characters (Cobalt and Diamondback), one you already know and love (Othni), and an older one that I decided to revive (Valence), because why not

I'm gonna include some trigger warnings for a little blood, super light gore (if you wanna even call it that), some violence, and implied past abuse

"Does she know, Val?"

Valence ran a hand over his skull and let out a deep sigh, his magenta swirled eye lights constricted in fear as he paced around his living room. Avoiding looking at his companion as much as possible, he sputtered, "I-I don't think so. I wasn't being careless again, I swear!" Leaning back in his seat and crossing his legs, the demon arched a single brow, "For our sake, I hope you're telling the truth." He paused, vanishing into thin air and making the skeleton yelp and nearly stumble backwards as he reappeared, blocking his path. Backing Valence into a corner and making sure all possible escape routes were blocked, the demon leaned closer, his vibrant blue eyes becoming brighter as he lowered his voice, "For your sake, I hope you're telling me the truth. If you're lying to me again, I'll find out." 

The skeleton stared at him with wide, fearful eyes, his breathing momentarily coming to a halt. Remembering the last time the demon had caught him telling a lie, he nodded, hoping to convey that he understood. Feeling satisfied, the demon hummed, taking a step back as he continued watching his host. It was a while ago that the two of them had made that contract, and while they did occasionally bicker, they were normally on the same wavelength with one another. Val's gaze flickered back toward his kitchen, and as he lowered it to the tile floor, he took in the red liquid that had begun pooling in the spaces between the individual tiles. Part of an arm laid on the floor in the middle of the puddle, and a shape resembling a handprint stained his shirt, the bright crimson a stark contrast against the cream colored fabric. He had another mess to clean up now, and this time, he hadn't even been the one that'd made it.

Turning his back to the demon, he let out a deep breath and slipped into the kitchen, squatting in front of the sink and opening a set of wooden drawers, digging through various cleaning supplies. His companion quietly followed him, completely uncaring as he stepped in the pool of blood and crossed the kitchen, leaving behind a short trail of footprints. Seeing that Othni was, once again, trying to aggravate him, Val frowned, his brow bones becoming knit, "Do you mind? I'm trying to clean here." The demon stole a glance in his direction, a wide, almost manic smile slowly stretching across his face and putting his unnaturally sharp teeth on display, "Oh, I'm not in your way, am I? How rude of me." 

Val let out a soft, irritated growl in response, and Othni snorted in amusement, shaking his head. As Val returned to trying to ignore him, he dragged his clawed fingers over the surface of the kitchen table, leaving deep scratches in the wood. Hearing the sound, the skeleton finally shifted his attention back to Othni, immediately scowling as he took notice of the damage that was being done to his table. Careful not to step in the blood, he gave Othni a light shove and hissed, "Stop it, Othni. Can't you see that this is pointless? We made that deal in order to help each other, and you decide to damage my belongings because I'm not paying attention to you?" Othni arched an eyebrow again, quietly daring the skeleton to keep talking. With his mind clouded by anger and frustration, Val did just that, practically sneering at Othni, "You're no better than a spoiled child, I swear." 

An image flickered in Othni's mind of a middle aged human with dark, curly locks, scowling at him and shouting words that he couldn't quite make out. As the human lifted a hand and prepared to strike him, Othni's locks of hair that resembled the rounded ears of a big cat laid back flat against his head and he was on Val in an instant, one hand immediately seeking out his neck vertebrae. Feeling himself be lifted up off of the ground and slammed into a wall hard enough to cause a small crack to form in the back of his head, Valence let out a pained and startled yelp, instinctively trying to free himself from Othni's grip. The demon's eyes burned into him as he moved closer, only inches away from Val's face as he growled lowly, "Shut your mouth before I shut it for you, monster. If you even so much as think about speaking to me like that again, I'll-"

He was cut off as someone knocked on his front door and called out, "Hey Bandersnatch, are you in there?" Almost as quickly as he'd lifted Val up off of the floor, the demon set him down again and released his neck. His expression had completely shifted, no longer holding even a trace of anger, and he offered another sharp toothed grin to Val, tilting his head and murmuring, "Answer it, Valence. Go see what he wants." The skeleton hesitated, and then upon seeing that Othni had become docile again, he darted to a coat rack, nearly tearing a jacket off of it's peg and tugging it on, zipping it up just enough to hide the handprint that stained his shirt. The demon continued watching him, slinking back into the shadows as Valence made a beeline for the front door and answered it.

Making a face at the other male skeleton that stared back at him, he cleared his throat, "Oh. Hello there, Cobalt. How can I help you?" The skeleton in question eyed him for a moment, "Where were you a couple nights ago, at about this time?" Val blinked in confusion, "...I was here, preparing a dish for Banquet. Why do you care about my whereabouts all of a sudden?" Cobalt's gaze hardened and he stuffed a hand into one of his pockets, "No, you weren't. Try again." Val stared at him, clearly at a loss, "Would you just speak plainly, please? I have a lot on my mind and the last thing I want to do is play this stupid guessing game with you." The shorter of the two continued to watch him, his expression turning suspicious, "Fine. According to Glo, she bumped into you at the store. Said you had a big bag of cat food in your arms, which is odd, even for you. Considering that you don't have any cats, and all." 

Valence was frozen for a moment, having been caught off guard. Processing what the other had just said, he regarded him with clear disbelief, "So you think I'm lying about where I was? How do you know Glo wasn't the one lying? Don't tell me that you believe every word that leaves her mouth." Cobalt was unphased, pressing on just as confidently as before, "I take everything she says with a grain of salt. When she does lie, it's usually in a joking manner over something small and unimportant. Seeing you at the store would be a little too random for her to lie about, I think. You, however..." The guard paused, leaning a bit closer and inhaling deeply, "You could lie through your teeth, right here and now, simply for the hell of it. And then there's that disgusting stench you bring everywhere with you." 

The taller skeleton furrowed his brow bones, "Since you're so keen on sniffing me like some kind of dog, tell me, Cobalt. What stench do I have, hm? These clothes just came out of the dryer, and I took a shower as soon as I got home a little while ago." Cobalt frowned, narrowing his sockets at the other monster, "You reek of death... To be a little more specific, in case you don't understand that, there's always the faint scent of human blood wafting off of you. Sometimes when you start acting even weirder than normal, there's this gross, rotten fruit kind of smell there, too. Care to explain why you smell like blood?" Valence raised a single brow bone, "I stopped by that new meat place in town and picked up some beef. The butcher was a human, so maybe he cut himself or something while he was working." The guard scowled at him, his tone gaining a much sharper edge than before, "Wrong again. That's a monster shop, run only by monsters, not by humans. And also, cow blood is completely different from human blood. I've smelled both before, and they're really easy to tell apart." 

Valence unconsciously took a step back, his gaze darkening as he smirked, his own tone becoming malicious, "Because you've killed countless humans in the war, I know. Did you keep track of how many potentially innocent lives you took, or were you running solely off of mindless bloodlust?" Cobalt was momentarily taken aback, glancing away from Val, "...If it was up to me, I wouldn't have killed any of them. That's not the kind of guy I am." Valence shook his head, choosing to mock the soldier, "Oh, I know. The big bad, evil princess of darkness made you do it, didn't she? How truly awful of her. Does Chimera know what you've done?" Upon hearing his friend's name, Cobalt squared his shoulders and made a sound in confirmation, "Yeah, she knows. I make it a point not to keep secrets from her." 

The taller skeleton reached out, his grin condescending as he patted Cobalt's head and cooed, "Awe, how thoughtful of you. I'm glad you're so open with her!" Cobalt growled and slapped his hand away, glaring up at him. As the scent of rotting fruit began to waft out of the house, he hissed, "Listen, Val. You might've gone on a few dates with her, and yeah, she likes you, but I want you to stay away from her. I want you to stay away, and I want you gone." Valence smirked again, "And what'll you do if I stay? Are you going to run that blade of yours through my body and kill me like you did to those humans?" Cobalt faltered, and when words failed him, he summoned his sword and drew it, trying to maintain at least the appearance of being confident, "If that's what it takes to keep you away from Chimera, then yeah, I will. Something about you is off, and every time you're around, all the red flags immediately go up. I don't trust you, not even a little bit. I wouldn't trust you to take care of another person, let alone Chimera. She deserves so much better than lying, manipulative, scheming bastards like you." 

Another unseen person made a sound in agreement, "For once, I believe you're right. She does deserve better." Val jerked in surprise, momentarily freezing as a set of glowing green eyes peered at him from the shadows under a tree that sat in his yard. As the demon in the shadows presented himself, he crossed his arms over his chest, calmly approaching the two skeletons. As he drew nearer and nearer, Cobalt made a face, noticing the way the scent of rotting fruit began to rapidly fade away. Recognizing the demon almost immediately, Val scoffed, "Oh, please. The social reject is trying to tell me to stay away from Chimera now, too? Listen, buddy. This has nothing to do with you. It'd be in your best interest if you minded your own business." Diamondback tilted his head, "On the contrary, this has everything to do with me. You can either be a good little brat and get lost, or I'll have to teach you how to listen better. Which will it be?" Valence let out an exaggerated sigh, rolling his eye lights, "I'm not going anywhere, ok Gramps? This is my house, and this is where I live. Nothing is gonna change that. Not when I've already settled in so well." Without warning, Diamondback warped through the space between them, backing Val further into his house.

As Val tried to slam his front door shut, one of the demon's hands caught it and he hummed, "Please don't make this difficult. I'm really not in the mood to be doing this right now." Struggling with the door and quickly noticing how much stronger the demon was than him, Valence panicked and snapped, "Then why bother?! Just go home already!" Diamondback's body warped beneath the door easily in the form of a shadow, and before Val had any time to process what was happening, a hand gripped the front of his shirt, forcibly dragging him closer. Making sure to expose his fangs as he spoke, Diamondback hissed, "I don't appreciate you taking that tone with me, Valence. Bark one more order at me, and I'll be taking your jaw. Now, you already heard me when I told you to leave, correct?" 

The skeleton nodded, and Diamondback continued, "Good. I have another thing I'd like you to do for me, if you'd be so kind." Val nodded his head, his voice much softer than he would've liked, "Y-Yeah, sure. What is it?" Diamondback's bored, slightly annoyed expression shifted, a knowing look in his eyes as he offered Val a small smirk, flashing his fangs at him again, "Tell Othni that he's not very good at hiding. Even if I can't see him, I can smell him, and he smells like shit."

#writing #tw blood #tw light gore #tw mild violence #tw implied abuse #diamondback.exe #othni.exe #cobalt.exe #valence bandersnatch #four horsemen of the apocalypse #riders of the apocalypse #undertale #undertale au

[nighttimepixels]

Night: Oh yeah, the lillytale ladies purr btw :) Me, absolutley ascending: ffuUck yeS.... PlEase.... My WiFe.... 🥺💖💞

You are all so valid, oh my gods.

They absolutely all purr, and each have their ‘spots’ and circumstances, heh. Across the board they’re definitely inclined to do so when particularly sleepy, or in a particular intimate cuddly moment. Specifics though... here’s the Lilytale Purr HCs, then ✧(ô▿ô )

Serif (Lady UT Sans):

Best spot when relaxed: massage the palm of her left hand, or gently skritch/soothingly rub her occipital bone (aka, bottom/back part of skull)

Likely to purr in general when she’s drinking coffee on a rainy afternoon, sunk into a couch/soft spot and listening to music.

She blushes a little when she’s caught purring, but mostly chuckles it off and deftly changes subject if you try to point it out.

... get close enough to her though and become her nap buddy and you’ll get to hear it a lot. Softly, quietly, as you drift off. It’s a really soothing sound, actually.

Vellum (Lady UT Pap):

Best spot when relaxed: trace her collarbone or gently run your hand over the top her skull~

Likely to purr in general when she catches you doing something particularly cute and/or making her proud in a casual sort of way! EG, maybe trying to solve some of her handcrafted puzzles so you can engage with her more on it, or maybe she sees you working on your own passions~

... also purrs a little if you praise her when she’s in a rare sleepy state. It’s very hard to catch her in these, but oh man, is it worth it. She turns extra cuddly - good luck escaping her arms - but she flushes with magic and can’t help but purr if you genuinely praise her. Just prepare for the praise to be turned back on you in an exceedingly honest and spot-on sort of way :D

Sapphire (Lady US Sans):

Best spot when relaxed: trace along/gently massage her upper spine, or skritch at the difficult-to-reach-spots where her spine and ribs meet (but not the inner part, the exposed outer part, oh geez)

Likely to purr in general when you get the hiccups (they’re illegally cute, and you getting frustrated over them even more so), and when comes up to hug you in public if you’re close - because only you can hear her and she knows what it does to you ;D

Also a big-time aftercare purring type. Also also, sort of... panic purrs if you’re sick? It’s subconscious after she’s already done a lot to try and make you comfortable - she’s close (or if possible, holding you/cuddling you, germs don’t mean much to her) and taking care of you and instinctively just purrs to try and soothe you. ;v;

Amber (Lady US Pap):

Best spot when relaxed: almost anywhere, frankly, she really enjoys casual intimacy like that, buuuut you’ll almost certainly get her if it’s along her sternum - or if her head’s in your lap and you stroke delicately along her nasal ridge.

Likely to purr in general when having quiet together time with you - eg, you’re both reading, maybe you’re leaning up against her side, each buried in your own book, or other activity - just together, doing your own laidback thing. She loves it and without fully registering will probably purr and nuzzle you a bit if you’re within easy range.

Also purrs if she catches you falling asleep against her. She’s a sucker for that gentle trust and mutual comfort.

Crimson (Lady UF Sans):

Best spot when relaxed: along the underside of her mandible, but also - if you’re willing to risk the casual moment turning more intimate - tracing/massaging her mid-to-lower spine. She’s a sucker for feeling your soft touch dancing along her spinous process. (the lower you go, the more you risk frisky energy, heh - but that’s not unlikely regardless, with her)

Likely to purr in general when you get caught up talking about something you’re passionate about. She likes the spark in your eye, the way your hands get all the more expressive, the vibrance to your very soul. The chances double if she catches you satisfied at the results of whatever you’re passionate about (eg, completing a difficult task that you were very into)

also will definitely purr if you get sassy/snap back rightfully at anyone who’s being a jackass to you. Of course, she’ll also summarily see if you... need her help (and probably send the bastards running if you consider it for even a moment), but the purring will happen in the end as she hooks you close and readily confesses to how hot that was and how much she likes seeing that spark in you. This kind of purring might turn x-rated very fast, woops

Scarlet (Lady UF Pap):

Best spot when relaxed: you have to be very close to earn this, but if you’re at that point with her, then - delicately massaging the bones of her wrist... or tracing her collarbone.

Likely to purr in general when you’ve asked her to help you with anything and you’ve gotten... close over the course of that help. Perhaps it’s learning how to cook something, or investigating something, or learning some measure of self-defense or even swordplay from her... pride in you reaching some level of success will absolutely induce a pleased purr from her.

Also prone to purring if she’s had a good amount to drink. She definitely forgets some of her inhibitions and will be inclined to be more flirty, too - it runs in the family - buuuut she can also accidentally fluster herself, woops. So try not to tease her too much if you want to maximize the purring if you’re drinking with her ;D

Pepper (Lady SF Sans):

posted about here :D

Cinnamon (Lady SF Pap):

Best spot when relaxed: stroke along her sternum, or gently massage her spine. She’s got a lot of built up tension - having a soft, sweet human she’s awfully close to help take care of that is practically a guarantee to start her purring.

Likely to purr in general when she gets high and gets to play with your hair/touch you (doesn’t have to be frisky touching, either - you’re just soft and it’s nice to her)... and also when she watches the northern lights or a meteor shower. The latter is a very happy and rare state for her, but you’ve never seen her so relaxed and in awe that isn’t carefully hidden/masked with something that edges control.

Also inclined to purr if you’re inclined to sing/make music of some kind. It doesn’t even have to be particularly skilled; hell, half the time her purring in this regard is never even witnessed. Maybe she catches you singing in the shower and just leans on the wall outside the bathroom to listen, or you’re picking up an instrument and she overhears you from the hall/another room. She enjoys the musical expression from you, and the exploration even if it’s not expert, so long as you’re into it.

Blade (Lady HT Sans):

Best spot when relaxed: her palms! They’re so much bigger than your hands, but gently tracing along them and/or massaging them just tickles something soft in her soul and she ends up purring.

Likely to purr in general when you’re resting on her in any sort of casual, deliberate way. The display of trust means a lot to her - she knows how scary and threatening she looks and how hard she can be to get that kind of close to.

Also inclined to purr whenever she finds you making food for her/her sister. For fairly obvious reasons that... kind of means everything to her. She’ll eat every bite of course, no matter what it tastes like, but if you’ve paid attention and made something she particularly enjoys... well, hope you’re prepared to be stuck in the very comfortable grip of a purring giant skeleton woman for a while yet - it’s time for a sleepover, probably.

Bonus: purring machine if she catches you and her sister napping. Favorite human, bonded so well and appreciating her sister too? You won’t catch her purring probably, but you will wake up to a blanket having been laid over you both and Blade almost certainly nearby. If not, then you’ll smell her obscenely good cooking in the other room for sure.

Twist (Lady HT  Pap):

Best spot when relaxed: gently tracing along her cheekbones/back of her skull, or along the vertebrae of her neck! Also, as is a bit of a trend, is a bit weak to the collarbone as well.

Likely to purr in general when you’re appreciating nature with her in any way. Sitting in her lap as she sings to the flowers? Helping her water the garden? Simply following along as she tends to her many plants/goes on her walks through the forest? She’s going to end up purring. It means the world to her that you’re interested, for whatever reason you may have.

Also going to purr if you’re willing to take a bath with her. They have a massive tub, but also a hot springs they tend; she really, really likes going there, and if she has you agree to go with her, though it’s a vulnerable sort of thing? Hoo boi.

Alpha (Lady Q Sans): 

Purring denied actually, as my sib (who made Q, Alpha’s og counterpart) states... Alpha would effectively be like: “I am no simple bitch, I am a super-advanced AI - you’re going to have to work harder than that to get me to do something like purring!”

... So, for now, she remains an enigma. You’d probably legit have to be with her for ages & married or some such to unlock that after... winning a significant and highly unlikely bet. Or a series of them. XD

Glyph (Lady G!Sans):

Hardest (besides Alpha) to get to purr, actually! You’d have to be at an obscenely high intimacy level to unlock this.

Best spot when relaxed... isn’t a thing for her, actually! It’s the reverse. She’d have to have you melting in her arms relaxing at her touch before she’d come close, oho.

Likely not to purr, in general, as stated... but if there was any chance beyond the one stated above, it’s almost certainly if she’s all but the opposite of sober. The others are all nigh positive they’ve never heard it, except Serif - who secretly has recorded footage from when she and Glyph got drunk one night while looking after the dogs and Glyph ended up in a pile of adorable dog affection.

She’s a bit too well-managed beyond that to let purring slip - the Coda side of her is extremely opposed to purring, so that part of her nature is withheld XD

Dusk (Lady HF Sans):

Best spot when relaxed: third trickiest to get to purr, actually... until after she’s coming out of a high-adrenaline state and is finally relaxing with you soothing her. Mandible’s the trick with her then, or general careful affection. She’s still a bit out of her mind - literally, giant hole in her head and all - and is a liiiittle on the feral side.

In exchange for hearing it, then, you’re probably gonna have to resign yourself to semi-feral protective instincts and chill in her protective hold for a while, heh.

Warning though - don’t mess with her floating ribs when she’s in that purring state. She’s been through a lot, and they’re really tender; you’re just as likely to cause her pain as ignite a passionate spark in her. It’s a danger zone.

Dawn (Lady HF Pap):

Best spot when relaxed:... I-If you can reach... she likes it when you touch (pet??) her nasal ridge, or massage the points where her giant horn/antlers connect to her skull.

Likely to purr in general when... er. Well. Honestly, she’s usually too... on-edge, and not terribly present, to purr. But if Dangerous Things have recently been significantly handled, enough to pull back to tend to wounds and stuff, she might start if you’re taken care of, her sister is there and safe as well, and the Snowdin forest has been, at least for a short reprieve, been successfully defended.

#night answers #lilytale asks #imagine the lilytale crew #purrings hcs #ngl i'm cracking up bc I checked re Alpha and purring and my bro's response was viscerally no XD #so i guess... cw?? #cw: purring #'s super not a thing for some people and hey i respect that #but also ehhhh i'm deep into the monster fun fuck it i enjoy purring hcs #Anonymous

[nickdempsey]

R054 Ch. 1(?)

So, I wrote a thing. For lack of better terms, it’s a fanfic of a fanfic.  Ha.

All kidding aside, full props to the original AU this is based on, @lab-raised-steven . The person running it is a really awesome dude who helped out a lot with the lore and writing process as I wrote this.

The idea is that Jason Stross, a character of mine, waking up to find himself locked away in the Lab of Dr. Robert Wendell, at the mercy of said sadist.

This all stemmed from me reading how much of a bastard one of the scientist characters are and thought, “Hey, it’d be kinda cool of Jason met this guy.

So, without further ado,  I hope you find this piece entertaining, but most importantly, I hope you give @lab-raised-steven / @lab-raised-archive / @societyslostone (Main) a visit! 

Have a great day!

WARNING: Contains violence and mention of severed limbs.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

There were many times Jason had felt this way.

A splitting headache, drowsiness to the point he was unsure if he was conscious, his entire body was engulfed with pain, and pure confusion of where he was.

The last thing he remembered was the explosion he caused by destroying the Warp Pad he warped in through. Then falling into this planet’s ocean. He was sure that he was going to die.

 At least, he was unsure if he was still alive.

 When he did eventually wake up, everything from his environment to clothing was different.

He found himself in a dark and cold room. His prosthetic arm was taken as well as his regular clothes. He found himself in a sort of teal hospital scrubs. His organic arm was handcuffed to the metal chair he was sitting on, along with his feet.

He tried to stand, but the handcuffs and his weakened state proved that the effort was fruitless.

 It did however receive a reaction.

 Jason’s attention was pulled away from the chair as he saw a door open, flooding the room with a blinding white light. A humanoid being walked in. As soon as Jason’s eyes grew accustomed to the light, he was met with a man standing above him. A human male. He held with him a decently sized briefcase, to which he placed on his own size of the table.

The contact caused a short clanging sound as it hit the metal surface.

He was a paler man under his lab coat. He kept staring at Jason through his glasses, windows to an icy cold stare looking up and down Jason’s body. Examining him. Studying him.

Not saying a word, his gaze left Jason and looked over to the briefcase.

The man opened it, angled so that Jason could not see what was inside it.

The man pulled out a small plastic rectangle. A voice recorder.

 The man brought the voice recorder close to him as he looked over at Jason again.

“Doctor Wendell’s log. Ruby 19, Year 7019 After First Contact. Two nights ago, a life form was found off the shore of the Empire State. Unconscious and barely alive.” The Doctor spoke into the voice recorder. He was speaking as if Jason was not in the room, but it was clear that he was talking about him.

 “The life form is human-like.” The Doctor continued. “Same physicality. Similar DNA matches. However, it is clear that the life form, a human male of military age.” He looked up at Jason with his eyes. “His apparel and other equipment also suggest military background for whatever planet he hails from.”

 He looked back at the recorder. “Judging by the condition of his body, he did not arrive to this planet willingly. When stripped of his suit, bruises, cuts and signs of head trauma were found throughout his body. He now seems awake and conscious.”

He looked back at Jason, “I am going to now attempt to extract further information.” He kept his gaze on Jason, placing the recorder down. He rested his hands on the metallic table, ensuring distance between the two.

 There were a few seconds of silence before he spoke.

“You are not of this planet.” Doctor Wendell said, the sound of his voice bounced off the walls of the small and cramped room. “Is that correct?”

 “Who are you?” Jason asked hoarsely. “Where am I?”

 Wendell groaned, sighing in disappointment. “I am asking the questions.” He said, clearly forcing himself to remain calm as he eyed Jason with more intensity.

 “Where the hell am I?” Jason demanded. While his energy was still low, he was able to rise from too tired to a tired aggravation.

 Wendell did not answer. In a quick motion, he stood from the table, keeping his eyes on Jason.

He reached into the briefcase again, pulling out a baton of sorts.

 It was odd to Jason, for he recognized it, but did not at the same time.

It reminded him of the Destabilizers that were left by the Gems on the planet Kul-Baris, but it looked different. It looked far too primitive to be made by the Gems. It almost looked as if it was built by human hands. Humans of this planet.

 Wendell walked around the table with the baton in hand, growing more frustrated with each step.

By the time Jason processed the Doctors intentions, it was too late to defend himself. After two heavy and fast hits of the baton, the first to his head and the second onto his chest, Jason felt as the voltage violently traveled through his body. He yelled in pain as Wendell kicked at his chair, pushing him into falling to the ground.

 Jason could only watch as Wendell walked over the table and began to stomp on him rapidly over his body, his legs and even his head.

Once the Doctor decided it was enough, he hit Jason a final time as he pulled the chair to stand back up. Jason spat out a significant amount of blood.

 “I believe you are unaware of your situation.” Wendell said as his hand gripped Jason’s jaw tightly. “Whatever significant life you believed you lived before coming to this planet is over.  As far as anyone in this universe is concerned, you are dead.”

 He threw Jason’s jaw, causing his head to grow sore from the sudden jerk. “And on this planet, you do not exist.”

 Jason looked back up to Wendell.

 The Doctor looked back at Jason as he returned to his end of the chair. “You are my property. You belong to me now.”

 Wendell put the baton back into the briefcase. “Perhaps if you behave, I will eventually give you your arm back. Continue this aggression.” He looked at Jason’s organic arm. “I will take the other arm. I will ask again. You are not of this planet. Is that correct?”

 Jason could only look at Wendell. The echoing pain told him to comply, as if it was a survival instinct.

“That is correct.” He said, groaning from the pain Wendell presented him with.

 “What is your planet of origin?” Wendell moved to the second question.

 Jason was quiet for a few moments. “Requiem.” He spoke, unsure of the point of answering such a question.

 “Where is this planet?” Wendell asked Jason. “Where is Requiem.”

 Jason looked over to Wendell, his eyes grew more tired from the question. “I studied engineering.” He said to Wendell. “Not navigation.”

 Wendell held a deep sigh as he looked over his notes.

“Perhaps we can talk about something you do know about.” Wendell said as he flipped through some of his notes.

 “The device on the back of your head. Imbedded in your spinal cord. On this planet, we call it the Atlas Vertebra.”

Jason froze. The already cold temperature of the concrete room and metal chair he was handcuffed in felt as if it dropped a few more degrees.

 The Neurolink, a device most of the populace of the Requiem Republic use for better control of devices and communication.

His left arm shot up to try and reach the back of his neck to confirm but was painfully reminded of the four-inch handcuffs connecting him to the chair.

 “Handcuffs.” Wendell sarcastically reminded Jason. He went bac to flip through his notes. He pulled out a page and placed it on the table in front of Jason.

 “Surgical procedure.” Wendell said as he presented the page. The main one was of Jason, post procedure. It only showed the back of his head, a blood-soaked bandage where his Neurolink once was.

 Jason began to feel soreness in that area, now realizing the removal of the device.

 “We found bits and pieces of information.” Wendell said as he pulled the photo away. “Some audio. Some visual. Saved in such a small piece of technology. For lack of a better term; memories. Judging by the recorded brain waves, memories of significance.”

 “Huh? You went through my Neurolink?” Jason asked, finding the task to be near impossible, even by the standards of Requiem technology. “How- “

 “My organization specializes in studying and reverse engineering Alien technology.” Wendell interrupted Jason again. “Until your arrival, it was only Gem technology.”

 Wendell then pulled some more pages from his notes and placed them in front of Jason. “Activating your ’Neurolink’ took a dull afternoon.”

 Jason was silent as he looked down. They were more photos. However, they weren’t just any images. They were memories. His memories. Moments he remembered from his life.

By the looks of the photos, less than perfect memories.

 “We chose these particular memories.” Wendell said. “Of the few we managed to recover. Based on the heightened brain activity. Some of which are obvious why.” He pulled up a photo and placed it in front of Jason.

 The picture was from Jason’s perspective. Filtered through the HUD display of the helmet he wore that day. However, he was well aware of the event shown. It was such a long few years ago, but it felt so recent, as a pain began to grow on what remained of his right arm.

 He was lying on his back that day. Forced down onto the cold icy surface of the cavern in the photo. He remembered his entire body was in pain that day. Standing above him was a figure that clearly wasn’t human, but humanoid.

The figure looked as if they were encased in a full body suit of black armor, which had a purple glow coming off of it.

What made the memory as significant as it was, however, was the figure in question, now covered in Jason’s blood as it held his severed arm.

 “Such as this one.” Wendell said as he tapped on the arm in the picture. “I can only imagine losing an arm in anyway could be traumatic.”

He pulled another photo out, nowhere near as chaotic as the previous. “Let’s try something more recent.”

 Jason was not wearing a helmet in this memory, as the photo lacked a HUD display. It was a rather peaceful scene; the memory was of Jason was sitting on a couch in a rather nice home.

The majority of his vision held another face. It was a blue woman, silver hair ran down her head, down to her shoulders. Her blue eyes glistened as she smiled at Jason.

 “This one, and another, I found interesting.” Wendell said, jotting a few notes regarding Jason’s facial expression to the photo, which oddly seemed more distressed than fond of the seemingly peaceful memory.

Jason’s face grew pale, his eyes fixated on the photo.

 “Same amount of brain activity.” Wendell said. “Nearly identical to the rest. However, the chemical balance suggests happiness. That you are at peace.”

Almost immediately after the statement, another picture was placed on top. “Fifteen hours later. Or at least that was what was logged, this happens”

 The picture was once again of a blue woman. The same from the previous. Her face, however, was from happy. She looked in pain. Her eyes filled with despair. Sorrow.

 Betrayal.

 She was looking straight at Jason, even through the photo. Jason tensed up as he looked at the photo. He was silent, but visually distressed from the photos.

 “Who is she? Why is she so important to you?” Wendell asked Jason, detecting the distress. “The Blue Woman.”

 Jason exhaled uneasily. “Please.” He said in a defeated tone, desperate to get away from the photo. “No. Not this.” She softly said in nearly a begging manner.

 “You do not have a say in this R-054.” Wendell said as he reached for his baton, visually warning Jason. “Who is she? A Gem?”

 Jason remained silent, paying no attention to Wendell as he kept looking down at the photo.

 “Was she just some whore? Don’t remember her name?” Wendell asked. “Perhaps your planet allows that?”

 Jason violently tried to stand up from his chair to argue but was still confined to the handcuff. Such a thing did not matter however, as almost immediately, Jason was met with another attack by Wendell’s baton.

The force from the blow caused Jason to fall to the ground, his chair clattering on the floor.

 “You don’t want to behave?” Wendell asked as he walked around the table toward his fallen and handcuffed prisoner. His baton shot sparks out. “Fine.”

 Not waiting for a response, Wendell repeatedly struck at Jason, not seeming to show any signs of backing away anytime soon.

Chained to the chair, Jason had no way to defend himself. He could only look up to see Wendell repeatedly hit him until his vision began to black out as he lost conscious.

  Jason wasn’t sure how long he was out for, but when he woke back up, he found that he must have been out long enough to be moved.

He was no longer restrained, but he might as well have still been. He was now in a small room that was barely more lit. There were three concrete walls. One of which had a door, presumably locked.

The fourth wall, however, was made of a thick sheet of glass. The other side of the window held another room. The light was off, all Jason could see was utter blackness. As if he was looking out into the void of space.

 AS if on cue, a loud siren played off as the light turned on, showing the parallel room’s occupant.

The room was nothing more than another cell, identical to Jason’s. He found himself stunned as he found who or what was in the other cell’s bed.

 A child. A boy. Until the siren, he was sound asleep.

The boy had curly black hair, and he wore the same hospital gown as Jason, minus the bloodstains from beatings. What received the most attention from Jason, however, was the boy’s eye. His left eye remained closed, bearing only a scar down it.

Jason shuddered, as he couldn’t bare to consider if the scar was a cause to what the people behind this facility did to him.

Better yet, why was the boy here?

 Sure, Jason was from another planet. While he wasn’t fond of his stay in his current location, he did understand it.

 The boy awoke. Stepping out of the bed, he did not seem to notice Jason at first.

That was when Jason saw the Gem imbedded in the boy’s abdomen. A large pink Gem. Almost looking like a Quartz. He wasn’t sure what specific cut of Gem it was, but he knew it was a Gem. Such a thing only served to cause Jason more confusion. Was the boy a Gem? Could Gems even be organic?

 Jason was so wrapped up in his questions, he failed to notice the boy finally seeing him.

Understandably, as his sight was on a grown stranger with one arm, wearing a blood-soaked gown, he began to panic.

 The Boy backed into his bed, falling over as he looked at Jason.

 As Jason looked at the panicking Boy, he began to sit down on his own bed, slow and calm.

 “It’s ok…” Jason said to The Boy, unsure if he would even hear him. “I won’t hurt you…”

His arm was raised, almost like he was giving The Boy a lowered hand wave.

 The Boy began to calm down as he saw Jason was not a threat. He readjusted himself, sitting down on his own bed, studying Jason.

He raised his own hand, thinking they were waving at each other.

 Jason only responded with a weak and tired smile.

#lab-raised-steven #steven universe #jason stross #gems #scientist #wendell #crossover #alternate universe #au #fanfic #fanfiction

[maxbradley]

Crash

***[Mature Content]***

"Get outta here, Brad." Shoving him off. The humidity must have shortened brain circuits because the next thing the black dog knew was that his muzzle was pressed against a nearby locker—swollen hands blocked the horizontal fall, and were made numb— "Listen, Goof boy." Turned him 'round and jabbed straight at the face—"Hrr-” — A bit of blood and sweat trickled down Maximilian's bare chest. Livid eyes burned holes through Uppercrust's contorted face, "Listen to what?!" The hands slammed themselves up to the other's chest to thrust him back into another metal object, which clattered and shook violently. The sophomore stormed off down the narrow pathway, waist towel in hand. He had barely gone ten feet when a rough arm gagged the neck, putting him into a lock— "Brad!-” Coughing— "Let go!!”— The yell became a scream "As you wish you little fucker!" A strong kick to the back sent Max reeling to the stone floor. The blood from the initial attack slithered onto the cracked surface. The only thing that ran through his brain was revenge—A near killer instinct that never gave halfway during that triathlon of an event—

Both rough hands pulled back at sandy brown hair as the standing figure's thick eyebrows raised as he inhaled deeply, letting the adrenaline slide— "Max, Max, Max. Do I really have to remind you why I'm like this?" A small chuckle. "No, you don't." By now Max had gotten himself up again, wiping off the bodily fluid from the side of his mouth. The left side sported a purple bruise. The humidity—the warm water vapor helped in nothing to control his shaky intake. "Let go of it, Brad. What's done is done. Shut the hell up and get outta here. I have no time to deal with a loser like you— The brows on the jock were still raised. Max had expected a sudden fury; the face showed little to no emotion, but the next actions spoke volumes. Again wheeled around to the side of the lockers, banging at the side and back of the kid's head—Every blow more sickening than the last—violent, unforgiving—hot loathing to the core. It was soon making contact with one of the shower poles and the protruding knobs. The white dog was never done and threw the victim onto the tile wall coming back with a supernatural grasp giving even more thrusts of the head and body on the white plane. All this time the boy screamed—shrieked in fury and pain. Convulsions didn't cease until the scarlet liquid seeped into his gloves. Max Goof was choking on his own flesh and blood— "You IDIOT! Do you have any idea what you and your team did to my reputation?!" No sympathy. No pride. Undiluted hate. "You- you've deserved everything that happened to you." The boy was murmuring down at the waist cloth sprinkled red and white. He didn't dare make eye contact this time; he was afraid to face the very thing that undermined his being back in high school… back when he—himself—was the loser. A cough let the coagulated blood fall between their feet. Bits touched the predator's toes. Dark blue eyes peered down before returning to the crooked head. Fingers wrapped themselves around the kid's neck and forced eye contact— "Today, Goof, you've lost." Words could not describe the darkened features of the young man's countenance. Once so full of emotion and life, Brad seemed so subdued that the enigmatic smile was all of a sudden more than just a show of pride. A heartbeat shot Max's emotions to the stratosphere— Humiliation, hatred, and insecurities broke into sobs. This change of pace took the sports fanatic by surprise, releasing the grip on the kid's windpipe, letting him sink down to the reddened tile. Salty tears washed away the gore… From the blue a fresh towel was thrust into his lap, "Shut the fuck up. You're a man—Now, get up before I make you." The black dog buried his wet face into the cloth, soaking up as much of the excess as he could. The stained gloved hand pulled at dark hair and stayed there, while the other did pull weight together to get himself up. The waist towel loosened, nearly fell off—but was saved in the nick of time. This little wardrobe malfunction startled Brad—flesh tone changed color and made him turn around to scan the locker room to see if anyone had heard in on anything that occurred. Splashes of a crusted red umber decorated the number of impacts given for the poor bastard. Against his will, the human side bounced back, not helping to stop the guilt that scorched his soul. The breathing had become just as shallow as the other. What the hell have I done? – A bead of sweat rolled down his neck. Am I really that angry? Dammit! Why does he have to be so cute?! Why is he so determined to make a fool of himself; and so full of life, friends—Family! Shit! I'm a jealous bitch! "Brad…-- Whipping his hair back—"What?!" Abnormal and hollow; eyes wild. "Don't even get near me anymore. Don't talk to me— Uncontrolled feelings flooded into fleshed strong arms—One on the shoulder, one on the waist. Both canines were shaking, and the overbearing humidity did not aid one bit in finding their sanity— "Don't touch me." Pink attacked the boy's cheeks as the reality struck him cold. Bleeding and all, a tongue rammed into the warm crevice and nearly sucked out the feeble life he had left. The boy was about to crash down and burn again when the other arm took an iron clamp up and down the exposed back pulling him forward, closer than ever before. Bellies were touching—Max grabbed a strong hold wrapping himself around the man's shoulders for support in partial fear of dragging Brad down with him. The lip lock broke for an instant, "I want your fury—I want your spirit. Give me everything it took to win!" The command injected newfound energy. The hands on Brad's neck dug into the nerve, onto the shoulder blades and onto his back—leaving imprints wherever the gloves made contact with the bare skin as their mouths clasped onto each other—traveling down the forehead, bruised cheek and eyelid down to each other's neck and collarbone—varied to each other and never in sync. The jock wanted to break the boy's vertebrae, ribcage—arm—anything, just to get a whimper or a yelp of pain— The expression that played on both faces was not that of bliss, but of incessant rivalry, mixed into that of confused pleasure and stimulation— "Stop—we should stop—please, Brad," panting. "Bradley." Another deep kiss led to a fumble of hands rubbing at bare chests, up and down Max's slender sides, finally reaching that last cover, "You won't be needing this anymore— The sudden refusal knocked the senior down, slipping on the slick tile along the way. Head fell with a thunk— "Ohh—what the hell-!!" Massaging that little bump, which was nothing compared to the blood loss at the back of the Goof boy's skull. Max, as satisfied as he was, only displayed a show of disgust… Or, was it a longing for something other than the lying body at his feet? "Maximilian—we got a good thing going here—why stop now??" "Roxanne." "… what.. ?" A phlegm-filled gulp—"Roxanne." How was it possible, after all the times he suppressed her very existence, hitting it off with other girls—her image was all of a sudden as vivid as death? "Your first time?" Brad was leaning forward in curiosity in an all-too-casual sitting. His neck bent back to try and find the answer in the kid's reddened eyes. "…. No." ~~ "But, what do you mean I can't see you again?" "A lot's been going on, and I can't take you with me." "Roxanne, please—I'll even transfer out of this campus— Slapped away, "Come back to your senses, Goof!"~~ As the name rang like mad in his ears, the 19 year old peered over the guy in front of him again. No, Roxanne was not his first time—she wasn't even a lover. No one ever was… His weakened heart suddenly ached for some pure form of affection. And now, it seemed that his last chance at true happiness had flown away… The only thing left was an empty shell of lust—a primitive desire. All he ever knew was school, friends and sports… Roxanne and his dad. The last fence to hurdle, separating him from selling his soul to the devil, who took advantage of his hesitant stature, "Relax, Goof, everything's gonna be fine— Everything's gonna be fine. Everything was thrown back to a sharp clarity. What the hell was he doing? What would happen if his father found out about this? The expression of worry was blatant. "Oh, Max. Nobody's gonna know what we did here. At least, I won't tell." "… Yeah." The gloves were removed. The last spark of innocence was extinguished, "Sure you won't, Bradley." There was no sense of letting his one chance of humiliating the X-Games King get away. "I might as well make the best of it." A low growl to his now darkened features. All the senior could do was let out a small gasp. The eyelids drooped to indifference. Not a smirk, not a frown. The movements were brutal—towels were ripped off, exposing themselves to each other. Max slammed his body full-length over the other, letting Brad's head fall to the tile again— And again as the black dog took his turn—ramming his mouth into the other while strangling him with both hands—"What the hell are you doing?!—” Hacking The pressure tightened, "Please!" and suddenly gave way, I'm supposed to hate this person— "Remember?! I'm supposed to hate you! Despise you—" Fever attacked as the boy manically pressed forward—"fuck you." Bradley's eyes widened until only the pupil was seen, at a loss for air and for words. As the words sank in, something clutched at his own heart. Out of fear, he let Max do exactly as he threatened, letting those ebony fingers grab at his crotch and pull and tug, and squeeze at everything—Loud moans were all the crazed boy could perceive—but he wanted something more out of this jerk— The legs went up in the air, massaged ferociously before letting a throbbing organ inside. A little howl, "Ha ha—Max, you look different… " a nervous chuckle. "Well, you told me to give it my all." It was now obvious that something in this kid's mind had snapped—that childish spirit had gone only to be replaced by a somber mannequin. The senior's breathing came in abnormal intervals; he could only utter this, "No—wait—Maximilian—-!!" This boy of no sexual talent dominated over the leader—going in deeper and deeper with each thrust. All Goof boy could imagine was revenge, torture. He already regretted not being close to a power tool—As the blood attacked his reddened cheeks and down his fur in drying clumps with all the sweat rolling down his body and biting his tongue to not join the chorus below him, all he wanted to do was go even further— To the point when he began to rock in all directions to find the place where the jock was most vulnerable, "Haa! Haa! M—Max. Max… ! Ngh—nggh—MAX!— A hand wrenched onto the other member and with a strong thumb tortured it at the same time the sophomore delved in again. The multitasking was doing the trick—"STOP!”—Pain-filled howl— Eyes flared as a corner of the predator's mouth jerked upward, "Everything!!" Both figures arched forward, backward, inverting against each other and grinding. Vapor, sweat on each and every part of their bodies. Bradley realized that he'd been ignoring every plea. Max could no longer contain his innate desires, pulled out and bit the tip before swallowing the organ whole, "Agh! Do you want to rip it out of me?! Stop it!" Up the naked fingers went from behind, legs high in the mist— The jock went beet red. Nearly fainting, he felt the final strokes of the tongue and thrashing of teeth before moaning aloud, "You goddamn Freshman!" A burst of semen went up in the boy's mouth— Horrendous flavor. He spat it right in the guy's face. Never had a feeling over him been so foul—A wave of nausea only fed into the boy's anger, fury, loathing for the man under him. The black eyes finally took a good, long look over the surface of that lean, toned… Before going down any further, Maximilian's eyes snapped back—locked to blue orbs, which were half opened before making contact. A dominant fear of the new predator ran circles in the jock's mind. He didn't know what to say—what to do—Usually, he would set the ground rules when it came to sex. I've laid more men and women than anyone on campus! "And now this-" inaudible whisper. Goof didn't even flinch. It took this long to come to terms with the fact that he was smiling. Smiling, not for the pleasure of either one of them, but because he was so close, "And… I'm about to win, Brad." The young man's state of mind shifted gears—the shallow breathing that carried the fear soon returned to its normalcy, and then a crease formed down the middle of his forehead. It was lethargic at first—And then those elements of bigotry and pride which he had always thrived on flooded into him like before— "Shit!" a shout of frustration and a fist at the cold tile. The boy was within him again. Max gave him no time for a comeback— The next thrust was one of the strongest, knocking the air out of him, and again—once more as the boy screamed out, "This is for you, Brad!"—Eyes livid—entire body shaking—fists clenching and unclenching before settling on slugging the brat in the face— "This is for everyone who ever tried to break me, whenever I was down— "ALWAYS, BRADLEY! ALWAYS!!" Maximilian was becoming either deaf or blind to whatever he spat out in the current situation, because the screams had gotten harsh and blood-curdling—more blows, bruises quick to form—Claws dug into flesh and pried open ridges— "BUT WHY?!" The bloodied hair matted over his face "Max!" Ill attempts at spitting out the copper "WHY?!?" Max Goof had lost himself to years of literal and imagined persecution—Faces flickered for milliseconds on end as the hardened member dug even deeper, tearing at the entrance's sides— "You motherfucker! You're gonna kill me!!" No generous amount of unsettling bodily fluids was enough to conceal the same exact being that had tried to kill this same kid much earlier. Legs slammed straight down. There was no room left for that foreign object to budge— "Shit!! Sh—it! Fuuuck—!" The other writhed in pain at the height of his anger, to be so close only to be shut out… Again. "Get—" Brad's laid back attitude scorched off. The boy's inferiority complex kicked in with bitter disappointment. "Brad… ley?" "Get, the hell, out of me.” Another sickening heartbeat was accompanied by a tearful gasp. The worm pulled out. Before he could even begin to apologize the pissed jerk jutted his arms right into the broad shoulders, rocked himself up and over the ex-predator, causing him a near concussion, grabbing at a leg and twisting the whole body down to the ground— "oof!”—Backside in full view—"Bradley, I'm sorry!" All the pain and pleasure had reached its peak, and was about to be released. The leader's aid consisted of rough slides up Max's ass, ramming into the zenith, All those suppressed shrieks and moans of the obscene belted out getting lost within all that jungle rhythm in the mist—that whitewashed rainforest— "Agh—Bradley! Haa—ha!—Nggh! Please, Bradley—" The slamming continued, frantic. The one last ill hold onto his dying rage as the same image of the same girl emerged, then realizing who was actually over him now, "I hate you— I hate you!" Roxanne!! "I HATE THE WHOLE WORLD—!!— Ah!—Tension released from his own cock right before the crazed jock let out his second wave of cum, "I want to die." Both expressions were shattered with scarlet. Both were hard of breathing, unable to understand the void of time. The boy's hand fell limp on the tile; his body sank to the floor in a puddle of their own sweat, blood, and tears. A splash of cold relief washed away all existence of what happened here, in this unnecessary lovemaking—lust. A strong limb pulled the dead weight up to its feet. Out of the void was a warm, sturdy shield, pressed against the swollen cheekbone. Eyes barely open, the loser shuddered and let out a withering sigh as the cascades fell on the embrace. Bradley, finally eradicated of all his hatred toward this naïve individual, planted a firm, prolonged kiss on his head, face buried in his bloodied hair… "Oh, Max, I hate you too. So much." His arms wrapped even tighter with the energy he had left. "Roxanne." The demon turned child wept at his grave loss… "Maximilian Goof, no matter what the hell happens next, I won't let you die—Promise of an enemy." Saddened in the heart, face down—hidden in his rival's chest, this loser couldn't help but attempt a smile.

#max goof #bradley uppercrust #bradley uppercrust iii #an extremely goofy movie #fanfiction #yaoi #shipping #oh noes #bad mojo #rival ships #since 2011

[soartfullydone]

Ah, Miss Boggess, there you are. Timofey's been driving me mad. He said he's found you the most luxurious gown—I do hope you plan to contribute funds, this isn't Cresce after all—and he wanted to know what your preference in masks might be. I beg you not to be too gaudy, I refuse to be upstaged. And you know how Alderode can be when its women are too bold.

I don’t know if this is anything but oh well!

Melody squinted up at the wright who’d waltzed into her space, disturbing her work with his near-incessant chatter. Bastion was in a good mood, then, complaints about Timofey aside, which suited her because technically her space belonged to him. The entire safe house did. She had done her best to clear out the papers, books, empty wine bottles, and other assorted debris from a corner of the room and remain undisturbed while disturbing no one. That plan had mostly worked until now.

Mercifully, when she met Bastion’s black gaze, he was clothed this time. As ever, he wore that same silver torc she never saw him without and was swathed in black. The v-neck cut of his shirt extended all the way down to his naval, which was downright modest of him even if she did get an eyeful, sitting on the floor as she was. He towered over her as he braced a forearm against the wall in a casual lean, intent on having her answer. 

With a sigh, she lowered her writing instrument and, bypassing his comments entirely, extended the papers she was working on toward him, all business. “Here.” 

On each page’s surface was a series of facial composite sketches. She’d drawn every Ald and Sharte who’d been on that beach when the cache of First Silver was stolen to the best of her memory. Had done similarly for nearly every job she’d ever taken as an assassin. Killing the wrong mark was embarrassing—and clean-up was messier. Experience was the harshest and best teacher.

Which is why she knew she was missing something about that night. It eluded her as much as the identity of their mysterious thief.

“Well, I wouldn’t submit these to any museums if I were you, darling,” Bastion commented, straightening up and listlessly flipping through the pages. “I trust you won’t be offended by my firm refusal to display these. We’re both adults here.” 

Melody fought back the urge to roll her eyes. “Is there anyone there you don’t recognize?”

His black brow lifted minutely, and he studied the pages more thoroughly, eyes passing over every face and noting the ones marked dead with an x beside them. “Only this ugly fellow. Such an unfortunate nose. I hope he at least gets his use out of it between a woman’s thighs.”

As he showed her the sketch, Melody did not check her smile. It was all teeth. “That’s you. Before the glamour dropped.”

“Such a generous perception you have towards us merry Alds. You even took me for a soud! Some don’t believe the Golds are true Aldishmen at all, you know.”

“Is that what you think?”

“My dear murderess, I have grown quite immune to the opinions of my countrymen.”

“But there’s no one else?” she pressed, nodding towards the papers in his hands. “No one who looks different to you because they might’ve also been glamoured?”

“Afraid I was the only wright who came prepared and armed with intelligence.” Bastion handed the stack back to her, a dry smile appearing on his lips. “Which is a glowing commendation to the clever bastard who managed to escape unseen with my Silver.”

“Our Silver,” corrected Melody, tossing the papers aside. So that had been for nothing. If she hadn’t been keen on killing their saboteur when they found him, she sure was now. Irritated, she rubbed the bridge of her nose. “So sorry I missed the lad. I was preoccupied ensuring that a certain prepared and intelligent wright didn’t succeed in cutting open one of my major arteries.”

“You should’ve shown your face sooner, little Sharte. It might have given me pause.”

Melody climbed to her feet, extended her arms over her head, and stretched. A few vertebrae popped, and her tense muscles loosened the slightest bit. She felt more than saw Bastion’s gaze travel along the arch of her back, but she paid it no mind. Behind his charismatic mien, she heard the dripping disdain he had for her. His client—Beadman’s buyer—might have botched the whole deal with the First Silver, but Bastion still pinned plenty of blame on her, the unexpected Sharteshanian wright who’d gotten in the way. For now, he tolerated her presence. He did not like her.

She felt the same way toward him, but reclaiming the Silver took priority over personal feelings. They would succeed and be out of each other’s hair much faster by working together than going it alone. Or so attending this Jet-only fête was supposed to prove. 

“Timofey found me a dress, you said?”

“A gown,” stressed Bastion. “Regrettably, the event we’re attending is a respectable affair. On its surface, at any rate. No simple frock will do.”

“But let me guess. Full masks are too elaborate? Then, an eye mask is fine. I don’t care what’s on it, so long as it’s discreet.” If she was unable to completely hide her face as she skulked around, announcing her presence with a gaudy accessory wouldn’t help. In that regard, she and Bastion were in agreement. “I know my business, my lord. There’s no reason for you to be afraid I’ll top you—that’s not what I meant!”

Eventually, Bastion stopped laughing.

Eventually.

Melody didn’t know how Timofey lived with this man. In a figurative sense since Timofey wasn’t technically alive. At least the spirit seemed to like her or at least took some form of pity on her. If it truly was a gown he’d spied for her, that meant a long skirt. Which meant she could still wear her knives, including her dagger of First Iron. Thank the Twins. “If you do see Timofey before me, thank him, won’t you?”

“And when should I expect to hear praise fall from those acerbic lips, hm?” He shadowed her steps as she navigated through the cluttered safe house, past overturned chairs and tables overflowing with more papers, sheet music, cigarette buds, and half-full whisky tumblers. Without a hint of shame at the state of it all, he twirled a hand to indicate the room. “For providing you with all this?”

“Of course I’m grateful,” Melody allowed, her tone laced with irony. “My one regret—besides this whole thing—is that I can’t burden you less, but unfortunately, my benefactor has chosen Fachlyne for his roost. Only the most dangerous place in Kasslyne, but no matter.”

“You say that yet you haven’t even seen our shining capital! Although, that sarcasm of yours is almost charming. You must be a real brat in bed, aren’t you?” 

She spun, fixing him with an annoyed glare.  “Look, Winalils, about the gown. Don’t take this the wrong way—”

“Ach, an oft-used phrase that always achieves what it intends, but do continue.”

“The reason Timofey has my thanks is because I’m more confident that he has taste. I was terrified you’d be picking something out, and it would equate to dental floss.”

“So taking care of one’s teeth isn’t a total myth in Sharteshane.” Bastion’s mouth quirked, and he regarded her with half-lidded eyes, taking a single step closer. “For a worshipper of supposed divine beings, you have little faith. If I dressed you, darling, it would be to flatter. Death and danger each have their forbidden appeal, and a master assassin should know how to use both to seduce her prey. If you’ve never heightened your assets to such titillating ends—when you certainly have the ass and tits to do so—then perhaps we should change that sometime. Besides…” He was close enough for his cool breath to caress her neck. “Are you quite sure you’d mind overmuch playing the doll for me?” 

Her face hot, Melody shoved him back into the edge of a table to his audible amusement. “If you’re going to be a fucking prick, I’d rather hash out the rest of this with Timofey.”

“He can’t take your coin. And as adorable as you look all riled up like a bitch in heat, that’s why I’m here.”

Jaw clenching, Melody thought about biting his extended hand. Y’know, if she was going to be such a riled-up bitch. Instead, she retrieved her coin pouch, which was nowhere close to full, and concentrated on counting out a suitable amount of sems rather than test Bastion’s knowledge of using pymary through touch. The coins clinked as they fell into his open palm, the grim sight of her dwindling funds cooling her anger.  

“About that,” said Melody in a flinty tone, returning to business. “I didn’t exactly plan on an extended stay in Alderode, and the First Royal Bank of Sharteshane isn’t within walking distance. I was thinking we might amend our… arrangement.”

Bastion was already turning from her, waving a dismissive hand. “If you’re looking for charity—”

“We’re not going to find our man at this thing. Reconnaissance never goes that smoothly. We might find a lead at best,” Melody said, stepping in front of him. If he didn’t want to listen to her, he could offset away and leave her coin behind. “But that doesn’t mean it has to be a huge waste of time. Nobles are the same everywhere. They have secrets to hide. You want me to find those secrets for you, I will. Want to blackmail someone? Done. Need someone tailed after the party? Done. This might even be easier for me to do here than in Sharteshane. Women are just supposed to be part of the decor, aye?”

“Aye, except for here, it seems.” His words were clipped, but he gave her an appraising look, almost challenging. “They are also to stay where they can be seen, not wandering into forbidden places without an escort.”

“What’s that matter to me? My reputation here is a fabrication. I’m not an Aldish lady. I’m the Shade. I don’t exist.” Melody took a short, bracing breath, but what was the point in holding back now? “Listen, Winalils, this is the closest I get to selling myself, and I do take my business as seriously as a heart attack. At least tell me you’ll consider it.” 

“I already am. What I’m curious about is what you want in return.”

“A guarantee of shelter. Food, clothes, just the basics. To know that when I sleep I’ll be safe.”

His eyes narrowed. “That’s all?”

“Aye. When I say basics, I mean basics. And I don’t want to pay for another fucking dress. Sell them after or give them to one of your lays, I don’t care. But if I drop coin in this country, it’s going to be because I—we—had no other choice. I’m not going back to—” Melody stopped talking, memories carding through her mind too quickly to land on any one. Her Sharte accent was thick as she ended with, “Anywho, those’re me terms.”

For the first time since their conversation started, Melody thought Bastion looked tired. His frown somehow deepened the perpetual shadows under his eyes, which had taken on an unreachable distance. As quickly as the sight appeared, it was gone. His chin-length black hair moved just so as he tilted his head back to look down his straight nose at her, his shrug as equally careless. “I accept them, provided that my end of the bargain will only be honored on the delivery of yours.”

“That’s how it’s done.” Melody jutted out her hand, ready to seal the deal the Sharteshanian way. A bone-breaking handshake—sans the spit. They were in plague territory after all, and assassin though she was, she merely flirted with death; she didn’t court it. Bastion’s hand enfolded hers, his long fingers encasing her own. Bloody pianist hands. It didn’t bother her at all to turn their handshake into a biting vise, didn’t surprise her that Bastion winced as his bones creaked ever so slightly.

What did surprise her and cause her whole body to freeze was when, on the third pump, he bowed low and brought her hand to his lips, his mouth landing hot on her knuckles. His wet tongue slid between the skin of her middle and ring finger, his eyes flicking up to hers when she hissed. His mouth stretched into an unforgiving, unrepentant smile. 

The Aldish way to seal the deal, with a healthy side of Black Tongue.

Of course, she didn’t know that at the time.

#anyway bite me cassie #ca: observe my sins #cue scene #Anonymous #otp: a little death

[nvcl347]

G-man x Female Reader : Relapse

- Warning : Gore and death implicated/involved -

It had never forded his perception of thought that maybe, just maybe, his employers rehearsed over heedless courses of action in the timeless space of years he operated for their behalf. Their orders, although not evermore of his particular enthusiasm, were considered, respected and carried out promptly. A loyal employer of himself, whose dedication to bureaucracy seemed like it had more steadfast restraint upon his moral mindset that his candid authorities had over him. A man who’s motivated by his set of general faith greater than god’s direct order to him.

The oxidized alloy bars of the balcony railing caressed his ghostly digits like the texture alike to sandpaper, a cold touch equivalent to the sheath his own skin. Periodically, he would tap to the rhythm of a reserved tune, a pattern expressing itself through his fingers as they stroke against the metal substituted for piano keys. A discordant, bitter sigh of frustration imbued inside his lungs with a rise visible in his chest. His uncanny stare, always seeming to concentrate into a hidden cosmos of his reveries, masked the grand abundance of derived knowledge he studied at once in split moments he observed through the events taking place before him. The whos, whats, whens, wheres, whys, and hows all processed to him in milliseconds of time for every individual part of matter present in the vacancy around him.

Over and over again, the instant he advanced to the chamber’s balcony from above, it occurred to him that this subject’s present route was succumbing to be a failure. Nonetheless, he would be suspected under oath of himself to witness each and every one of her abortive endeavors from spring to death. A variation in route always traversing its way to the same road stop. No nooks to cut and no trenches to uncover. 

The bounty of degrees she was killed manifested scenes of terminal circumstances he never had even seen a hire of his encounter before, who were prone to identical conditions as her. A sinister groundhog day altered for the worst. His employers ruled it was in his best interest to inquire of seeking out a replacement, not out of clemency, nor out of discontent, but rather in refining obligatory standards to their task. They argued that his hire has relapsed a task to unnecessary measures, and it should be taken into account that they beseech another who has it in the right chances to supplant without excessive trial and error. The arbitrary request was declined consequently, issuing himself to maintain the trails until her assignment went through as clear. He would not designate a hire a task he discerned that they couldn’t perform. A man neglecting god’s call to him, determined to seize the ambition he covets.

Ultimately, the course emerged to subsequently cast a source of a stream to his goal. The antlion guardian mourned its last cry of air as it raised its crest towering into the air. Its appendages stumbled over themselves as the brute arthropod lost its gain of balance, gracefully persuading its motionless head to the guidance of gravity’s heaving drag on its weight. Collapsing to its side, the beast gave way to the stillness of the room. It withstood the limp of a doll yet the flesh of a creature. It was her first time she’d succeeded in overcoming the colossal being in her countless series within the chamber. However, her method unfolded the grave cost of her own life in this field of endeavor she took this route.

A smug grin beamed over his withered, creased face, glaring his sight down from the balcony and towards her wounded form at the wall of the chamber. A grave, awaiting for its corpse to resurrect in time’s hold of appeal. It was a considerable advancement, but arrangements were still to be made in order to establish the utmost completion of his hire. A doorknob awaited her to the adjoining compartment just a few inches out of reach.

Compelling his way to the shallow floor of the chamber at a nonchalant pace, he approached the feeble, coping torso of his hire. He knead his palms together in weaving motions in the manner as an optical depiction of him accumulating his attention to his conveyance of words. An unpredictable turmoil of weather, with spontaneous periods of alleviation and striking storms formulating a spotty view of the scale that was his comprehensive intention for her. He flared the mouth of a grin that appeared to welcome her, yet opposing eyes that radiated an acumen of both her impending killer and grim reaper.

Her crude, life-striving beckons of air went to a standstill as the formal, defined taps of leather footwear overtook what was the only noise to be heard reverberating in the chamber, alike to a priest entering an empty chapel. Her head carefully raised from its grieving bow in order to meet her eyes with the source of the noise, unveiling her battered facial profile to a tall, governing figurehead walking to her living carcass. His administrative blue apparel stood out amongst the white palette which coated the chamber around them, pinching the lapels at his suit to perfect the presentation of himself. He proceeded to fix his stance at a position suitable for them to attain comprehensive glimpses of each other. 

His eyebrows furrowed together at her imbrued, abhorrent display as his head ticked itself to his right shoulder. The flicker of green in his eyes seemed to unveil a sentiment of less pity, rather more satisfaction towards her collateral condition. Her nose wrinkled together as her mouth twitched to its side in utter bewilderment of the man who exhibited himself before her. At a glance, any form of company in the quarters of her area would have rapidly inducted her to starve them for any accessible aid, yet this man swelled something inside that implicated to her that he wasn’t there to treat her in the way she fancied for. Aching to speak, she sucked in a grimacing breath of air, taking in the smell of guts through her nostrils.

“... Who are you?” her voice was glutted and crippled, audibly clear that she cowered in between spoken words. Her hair fell out from her mouth and swayed to the sides of her forehead to join the web of strands that was her crown of death.

“Your terminal condition seems to address to me that the nature of my identity is the… least of your concerns, Ms. (L/N),” he spoke to her in an ambiguous, hitherto assured nature. A mellow chuckle followed his opaque introduction, shaking his head in mild amusement towards her trivial inquisition to him.

“I-- I’m rotting sick! I should be dead!” she fought out to him in agitation of his cryptic, verbose grammar. An aching toxin pricked in her thorax as she made every effort to converse to him, similar to a voiceless force seeking to discourage her of any vocal interaction possible.

“And against the odds of my employers, you’re not… ” he crept closer to her dismantled figure in a stalking fashion, holding fixed upkeep over his unearthly smile on his face in blissful pride of himself and his hire.

“This should be a celebration, my dear, not a time of fret-- but I do not disdain you of your… misplaced ignorance, hm?” he gave leverage to place himself at eye level with her, up close and personal with her comfort zone disregarded altogether. A being of no physical boundaries, yet most faithful to his mental principles beyond any breathing creature. He was her caretaker, reaching into the fenceless enclosure of an extrinsic creature to discard of her inflictions and arrange her environment back to where it once was.

“Ignorance? I… I don’t know you, I’ve never even met you!” she strived to drag herself away from his disturbingly close profile, reclining her head to the wall of the chamber as her limit. A harsh wince seethed through her teeth as her meager hint of movement pulsed a ripple of agony through to her core. A groan shrieked in her throat as her head hung down to view her fresh open wound, recoiling at the grisly spectacle. Her eyes wilted impelled tears like a dying rose, applying pressure to the scar with the palm of her hand. Nearly gagging on her own esophagus, she clenched her eyelids as the hand that she could hold to divert and alleviate the pain in her.

He surveyed with impassive enthusiasm at her repugnant effort, his face relaxing into a neutral expression. With a mellow, tame hum, he bestowed his right hand from its gentle slumber on the backbone of his vertebrae. In doing so, he peeled away at the cuff of his sleeve with precision in order to reduce the accumulation of creases in his permissive garb. Nearly twice in size, he tenderly rested his open palm upon her own. His firm clutch was diligent yet cold in the flesh, irradiating magnetic verdant energy. This cast of chartreuse power formulated a froth of anesthesia to the exposed wound, certainly not mending the damage-- however assuming its presence to be deemed bearable to withstand.

“You would find yourself to be correct towards the idea that you don’t know what I am. However, I must assure you that this is not the first time we have crossed paths before,” as his treatment submerged into her abdomen, he addressed her comments with loathsome, consistent eye contact at every syllable. He was keen to presently maintain his sentiment with a lingering, raucous inhale, forming a small stubble in his throat.

“It is only now that we have simply done so on the likewise level of…  con-sciousness,” his lips twitched a smile through the ridges of his skin in ever such vague impressionism, though somehow so menacingly, fancying himself in his way of articulating what was an allusion to her solely not being dead upon his forthcoming.

His eyes briefly glimmered in a thawing blue-green tone, freeing her hand from his as the treatment was administered to its adequate essentiality. A crisp flutter of carbon released from her lungs she didn’t realize she was holding in for so long, stunned to the degree that she couldn’t possibly move her hand away from the numbed laceration it reclined on. The bitter rigor of his grasp seemed to never dissipate from her wrist despite the absence of his corporeal touch on her. It was a feeling that would cease to leave her in the lifetime he would continue to oversee her assignments. A chilling scar, signifying as his reminder to her of who she is now, who she once was, and who she will be.

“Consider this a small compensation on my behalf for your, partial victor, but I am afraid we are not done yet here,” he raised himself to the fullest of his professional posture, adjusting his collar and rolling back the cuff of his sleeve to his preferred origin.

“I don’t understand, I can just go… I can leave, whatever ‘imperfect victory’ you’re talking about I swear I can walk off,” she shook her head in disbelief as her breath steadied back to a pace it could find solace in again.

“My dear, I have simply taken the liberty of alleviating the lurid pain that is of your forthcoming departure. We will get back to work-- shortly,” every rasping of his voice ricketed the thump of her heart in hazardous treads, disregarding his humane appearance as an entirely unconventional anomaly in his inner flesh. His jaw crooked in defiance to his skull, swallowing a laugh as she shuddered in a timid uncertainty of what was taking place.

“You have accomplished in proving to my employers you have the potential I saw in you once before. I hold you in my highest regards, however, I expect of you to relay those standards to me… next time, Ms. (L/N),” his scouring speech came to a tender close as the last of life left in her eyes concentrated towards his own. Every nudge and trickle of muscle movement stiffened to solidity as her eyelids slowly brushed mid-way over her pupils as a blanket from the light. He was reasonably aware of when she was to pass as if he had a watch on his wrist counting the last breaths she had left in her. Now, all he examined was the same display he’d audited to countless occasions preceding. But this one was different. She was stronger, furnishing a dying breath that finally gave her time to converse to him for the brief time she could do so.

Straightening his tie once more, he advanced the chamber into the consecutive relapse. A familiar, refreshing gust cleansed air of the room to bless his lungs once more as the first thing to greet him inside. The muffled screech of a harrowing antlion guardian resounded from the walls of the nearby chamber to follow the rise in his chest of a discordant sigh, no longer decayed by the sense bitter of failure.

It was back to work.

#half life #gman #writing #g-man #gman x reader #x female reader #x reader #half life 2 #half life alyx #half life 1

[emperorsfoot]

Personally, my favorite part of this chapter is when Adora tries to pull an Obi-Wan on Dak, then immediacy abandons it. 

A dented gray tray was slid into her cell via the slit at the bottom of her door. The guard banged on the heavy metal door twice just to make sure she knew it was there. Not that there was much else to distract Entrapta in her tiny cell.

“We got a treat for you today, Princess.” The guard taunted through the metal. “Fresh fruit! Only the best for a Princess!”

Entrapta looked down at the banged up gray tray. There was a plastic cup on it that said ‘”Froot”’ in quotation marks.

“That’s not how you spell ‘fruit’.” She informed them.

But the guard had already moved on to distributing the rest of the prisoners their meals. “Here, Your Highness, fresh froot for you too.”

“Actually, since I’m a King, the proper term of address would be ‘Your Grace’.” Corrected the nice one who encouraged Entrapta’s coping mechanisms during her first days here on Beast Island. “Arg! There’s a bone in my froot!”

The guard’s boots could be heard walking away as they laughed loudly.

Entrapta squeezed the ‘froot’ out of its plastic cup. It had the density of gelatin, was an uncomfortable shade of blue-green, and had bits of stuff floating in it that did not look even remotely like fruit. She didn’t really wanna touch it, not even with her hair, but the guards were not obliging enough to give her a fork or a spoon with her froot. Entrapta used a single strand of hair to cut the gelatinous blob into smaller, bite-sized, tiny cubes. Tiny food.

She ate two of the and slid the tray to the side to save the rest for later. That was the one meal she would be brought for the day. Entrapta would not be getting another until the same time tomorrow.

They would not come by to collect the empty trays for at least six hours.

She had been paying careful attention to their comings and goings. Noting when she could first hear them entering her block of the prison, how long they paused at each cell, the total length of time they spent in her corridor before all sound of them vanished. Entrapta had to hand write her notes, scraping them into the stone of her cell wall. But she was diligent in her data collection, and compiled everything into a conclusion that told her the guards would not be back around until it was time to collect the trays.

Entrapta had a six-hour window.

Cringing at what she had to do, she laid on the floor in front of the door of her cell. Her head pressed right up against the slit at the bottom that they slid the tray through.

Her hair slithered out the slit.

Thin tendrils inching their way over the floor to measure the width of the corridor. Along the seam between wall and floor to gauge the space between cells. Up the frame of her own cell door, searching for a lock to pick.

The corridor was narrow. Only a meter and a half wide. The space between cells was wider than she expected. The stone of the walls must be thicker than the acoustics of her block mates implied. The lock on her door was not an analogue barrel and tumblers lock. If her hair was feeling right, the lock had a keypad.

Fourteen buttons. Zero through nine, asterisk and pound, and ENTER and CANCEL. She ran a second tendril of hair around the small display screen above the keypad. A narrow rectangle, barely as long as the lock was wide. Too small for a seven digit code. No, it had to be four digits. A four digit code, with numbers zero through nine as options. That meant there were 10,000 possibilities for the code to unlock her cell.

Pulling her hair back into the cell, Entrapta sat up. Thinking. She was about to start narrating, taking her notes out loud. But stopped herself. She did not actually have her recorder, so there was no practical purpose to narrating what she was doing out loud. In fact, announcing her plans and calculations could end any escape attempt before it even began. Since sound seemed to carry so well between the cells. She popped another tiny cube of froot into her mouth instead, sucking on the gelatinous goop to keep from speaking.

She had six hours until the guard came back to retrieve the tray. Six hours was not enough time to cycle through 10,000 possible code combinations to unlock her cell, free herself, find an actual escape route when she didn’t even know the layout of the building, and get away.

But it was enough to at least start.

Like any good scientist, she began by eliminating the absurd.

‘0000’ nope. ‘0001’ nope. ‘0002’ nope…

…

Now that the Locked Room was open, Dak spent the vast majority of their time in it.

The first thing they did was wake up the large monitor array that took up almost an entire wall. But the computer asked them for a password before it would let them view anything on it. After punching in random keys and still being denied access several time, the hybrid became frustrated and turned their attention to other things. The Locked Room was full of so many interesting things! They didn’t need to waste all their time growling at a computer.

The bots were interesting. So much variety! Bots on wheels, bots on two legs, bots on six legs, bots on rolling treads. Humanoid bots, insectoid bots, spherical bots and cuboid bots! All deactivated. Dak found a humanoid one around their own size, and pulled it out to the middle of the floor to get a better look at it.

Gears and levers in the joints for movement. Thin wire circuits traveling down the spine from the head. Several interlocking discs for a vertebra. Curved carbon fiber tubing to form a ribcage and house a gyroscope that –presumably- kept it upright and balanced when it was activated. Dak was still young and learning, they didn’t yet know words like ‘vertebra’ or ‘gyroscope’. But they looked at the parts and imagined how they were supposed to work. They had a ghost of understanding of the machine, even if they didn’t have the words to explain that understanding.

Dak set their bag of –technically stolen- tools next to the bot. They were keeping them in a tool bag now. Heavy utility canvas sewn around an aluminum frame. As stable and sturdy as a metal toolbox, but a lot easier and more comfortable to carry around. Through trial and error, Dak had also figured out which tools were meant for what jobs, and when they needed something, they didn’t just pull everything out and make a mess. They took out what they needed for what they wanted to do.

At that exact moment, Dak wanted to take the bot apart and see exactly how all the pieces fit together.

Whenever they removed a segment or arm, or disconnected a delicate segment of wire, or unscrewed a tiny screw, they set it aside very carefully. Arranging everything they removed next to the bot in the order they removed it. After Dak was done taking it apart, they wanted to be able to put the bot back together again. It wasn’t just senseless destruction they were after, they wanted to understand.

Imp fluttered into the room. The little deamon flew circles around the hybrid, squawking and chittering down at the young Horde clone.

“Go away, Imp.” Dak commanded, trying to sound like the heir to a Queendom everyone kept telling them they were. “Can’t you see I’m experting?” They meant ‘experimenting’. Dak’s vocabulary was still a work in progress.

With a screech of frustration, Imp landed next to Dak’s tool bag and opened his mouth. It was the voice of Dryl’s Horde Captain that came out. A recording from earlier that morning when the Captain was putting her troops through their paces. ‘Heads up, ladies! This ain’t not mountain spa aerobics class, I wanna see some real Horde training!’

“Don’t want to.” Dak informed the deamon, as they –very carefully- slid a disc of the bot’s spine out from the rest of the column. Figuring out this broken robot was way more interesting than learning to march, and different ways to stand, and how to put your feet when holding a weapon, or how to hold a weapon. Now, if they would let them take apart the weapon in question instead…

Displeased by the young hybrid’s continued disinterest in becoming a true Horde clone, Imp jumped on top of the robot Dak was working on. Placing himself between the hybrid and anything the hybrid might want to dissect next. He opened his mouth and repeated the last word again. ‘Training, training, training.’

“No!” Dak snapped. “And you can’t make me!”

That, unfortunately, was true. Unlike Baker, whom had placed herself in charge of making sure young Hordak Second of Their Name, Heir to Dryl’s education. She was determined to make sure Dak knew how to read, and write, do basic arithmetic, knew the borders of their Queendom, and the names of all the significant settlements under their rule, knew what was actually mined in the mines of Dryl, and why said mines were the basis for the Dryl economy. When Dak became board, or frustrated, escaped from their lessons, or refused to attend them at all, she would just pick the small clone up and throw them over her shoulder like a sack of flour. Imp had seen her carry four heavy sacks of flour at once –two on each shoulder. Dak was equivalent to one of them.

Imp, however, was half the hybrid’s size. Imp could not pick Dak up and carry them to the Horde Captain of Dryl for training. And the Horde Captain of Dryl hadn’t quite figured out yet that she had the authority to force Hordak Second of Their Name to train same as any other soldier. She was still under the impression that angering or displeasing the child would anger or displease the child’s… ‘father’ (another Etherian word, real Horde clones did not have ‘fathers’). For fear of angering Lord Hordak, she let Little Dak do as they pleased –even if they pleased to take all the tools out of the vehicle hanger and never return them.

“Get off my thing, Imp.” Dak commanded.

The little deamon hissed. He would never dream of hissing at master like that. But Dak wasn’t master. Dak was barely even Horde! The way things were going, they were not going to become true Horde anytime soon. Those multi-racial Etherean natives marching in the courtyard were more Horde than Hordak Second of Their Name was.

Dak just hissed right back at Imp, matching the little deamon’s tone and pitch. Not intimidated at all.

Imp blinked at Dak for half a second. The clone meeting his challenge with one of their own. Then, Dak’s hair coiled itself around the little deamon and plucked him up off the bot the hybrid was working on. Imp screeched in protest.

Dak set the deamon down on the floor behind them. As close to the open door as their hair could reach.

The moment Imp was no longer bound up in inexplicably prehensile hair, he jumped back into Dak’s way. Landing on the carefully arranged pieces the clone had already removed from his project. They went scattering to all corners of the room. Cylinders and screws rolling beneath consoles, carbon fiber ribbing bouncing under tables, important tiny pieces getting lost in the dimly lit room.

Dak uttered a rude word that Baker would have been mortified to learn they knew. They snarled at Imp, a wordless feral snarl. Sharp white teeth bared in anger. For half a second Imp thought the little hybrid might attack him, and he smiled. Finally, Dak was acting like a true Horde. Attack. Fight. Kill if you can. Be a predator.

But Dak did not attack Imp. Instead, the hybrid dove after the scattered pieces. Reaching their hair under consoles, coming out with more dust and neglected debris than pieces of robot that they wanted. They crawled under a table, looking for more pieces.

All the while, Imp flew circles around the room, squawking and screeching for the Horde clone to abandon what they were doing and go down to the yard where the Captain would drill them in marching, stance, and basic combat.

“Go away if you’re not gonna help!” Dak shouted up at Imp from under a table. Their head banged the table they were under and everything that was on it went clattering to the floor too. “Now look what you-!”

“New project log, Day one- one? Right, first day of a new project. Day one.”

Both Dak and Imp went silent at the voice. Imp recognized that voice. How could he not? She was practically cohabitating with master at the end. Both never leaving the lab. Dak had never heard that voice before, and they inched closer to the device that had fallen from the table. Picking it up, they held it in their lap as they listened.

“One of my new mining bots unconverted what I believe to be a First Ones disc in the mines.” Announced the voice. It was high in pitch and nasal. Female. And very energetic sounding. “Preliminary examinations show that it is still functional and running off of some internal power source. I hypothesize that studying this disc might be the key to making ancient and modern technology compatible!”

Dak switched off the device and picked up another one. They pressed the PLAY button on that one and a different recording of the same voice began to speak. “Log, Day 104 -105? Eh. The last experiment hit a few bumps, but it was not a total failure. I made some important discoveries. The disc is way more powerful than I ever imagined. With a few adjustments, I’m sure the next experiment will be a success!”

Looking up at Imp, Dak flashed the deamon a questioning look. “Mother?”

Well, yes. That was the Princess’ voice and everyone was calling her the hybrid’s ‘mother’. To spite the fact that clones did not have ‘mothers’. So, yes, the voice on the recorder was Hordak Second’s mother’s voice. But Imp was not about to confirm that and risk distracting the hybrid even further from their training. ‘Training, training, training.’

“I don’t want to!” Dak snapped.

Frustrated, the Imp’s eyes fell on the recorder in the hybrid’s talons. They wanted to hear their ‘mother’s’ voice. Fine. Imp would give them their mother’s voice. Imp had the Princess’ last recording. He had the forethought to grab the latest recording before he followed Scorpia out of the Fright Zone.

Fluttering out of the room, Imp left to retrieve it.

Dak was still trying to collect all the scattered pieces of the robot when Imp returned. Listening to random recordings out of order. “I don’t get what the big deal about the Dryl Orb is. It’s just a Rover. One of my predecessor’s less than benevolent inventions. I’ve never even had to use it. Not since the mines made the transition from slaves to my bots. The bots are so much more efficient! They don’t need to take breaks for meals or to void their bowels. They do need to recharge in shifts, but I’m hoping my research on First Ones tech will change that! First Ones power-“

Imp switched off the recorder and placed the new one in the clone’s hands. He opened his mouth and threw Dak’s request back at them. ‘Mother.’

Blinking in confusion at the deamon suddenly encouraging their curiosity, Dak looked at the new recorder in their hands. They pressed the PLAY button.

“Ethrian-Horde Cloning Project, Day 3 -2? No, 3.” The same nasal female voice announced. A voice that Imp just confirmed belonged to their mother. Princess Entrapta of Dryl. “The fetus is developed beyond what I believe to be the final stage of gestation in an average pregnancy. The clone now resembles an infant seven months out of the womb. Fascinating! At this level of rapid growth, I hypothesize that it will enter puberty by the end of the week. Full adulthood by the end of the month! Hordak will have a new body sooner than I originally projected!”

Dak paused the recording, looking up at Imp. Confusion and incomprehension rolling across his face. “I’m Hordak.”

Reaching a hand out to the clone, Imp pressed the PLAY button again.

“Ethrian-Horde Cloning Project, Day 4. Yup, definitely Day 4. The clone is entering its pre-adolescents now. I have never been very good at guessing people’s ages, almost as bad as I am at forming connections with other people. But based purely on physical appearance, I would place the clone’s physical age at between eight to ten years. At this rate, Hordak might have his new body before the end of the month! I hope he likes it.” A longing sigh. “He’s always so concerned with perfection and success. He’s so brilliant, but he allows himself to be handicapped by frustration. He’s too focused on results and not the process. I wonder if Hordak would think differently if he wasn’t so concerned with proving himself to his Brother. It almost reminds me of myself back when my moth- back when my predecessor was alive. Striving so hard to earn the approval of someone who doesn’t see you as an individual, but an extension of themselves.” Another sigh. “I just want him to be happy.”

The recording lapsed into silence. That was the last audio file in the recorder’s memory. That was the last entry.

Dak blinked at Imp, still not understanding. “But… I’m Hordak.”

‘Clone.’ Imp repeated in Entrapta’s voice.

“I don’t know what that means.” Admitted the hybrid. It was a word no one in Castle Dryl had used around them. They learned quickly, but they still needed to be exposed to information to learn it.

Imp scanned his audio banks for something that could explain what a clone was to the young hybrid. Even just the word ‘copy’ would be helpful. After all, that’s all a clone was, a copy of the original. Obviously, Dak wasn’t a perfect copy since they possessed very distinct Etherian traits. But the native DNA was negligible, the majority of Hordak Second appeared to be from Lord Hordak. They were a copy.

But Imp had no such relevant or helpful audio file. So, he just repeated the word back at Dak as if the repetition would spark understanding. ‘Clone, clone, clone.’

Dak quickly became frustrated with the deamon again. “Go away if you’re not gonna be helpful!”

They grabbed another recorder at random and switched it on. Going back to searching for their lost robot pieces while their mother’s voice played s background noise for their work.

“Princess Alliance Membership, Day 1: While I am grateful to Glimmer, Bow, and Adora for saving me from my own bots and the corrupted First Ones disc, I must admit that I am apprehensive of… mingling with a large group. Connecting with and understanding people has never been my strong suit. I fear I will not thrive well in a group setting. I function much better on an individual, one-on-one basis. Or alone. I like being alone. I’m better off alone. Bow seems nice, and he at least has a basic understanding of science and the importance of First Ones tech. Adora is a little more difficult-“

Dak paused the recording, tapping the button with their hair. They stared at the recorder. ‘Bow’ and ‘Adora’. Those were the names of the intruders! Did they know his mother? Were they friends? According to her recorder, in her own voice, she was trying to connect with them. Maybe they could tell them more about her. Maybe they could tell them what a ‘clone’ was. And, if Dak wasn’t Hordak, maybe they could tell them who this other Hordak was.

Adora and Bow had been taken to the dungeons. Dak knew how to get there. They discovered it during one of their early hunting games with Imp.

…

Adora was starting to feel pressure on her collar bone from her arms being suspended above her head for so long. Both she and Bow were chained up in a lower basement of Dryl castle shortly after their apprehension by the occupying Horde forces.

Chained up in a lower basement of Dryl that did not look like a basement at all. The lighting was dim, there were chains drilled into the walls and ceiling –like the ones that held them- and there were smaller alcoves to one side with barred off gates. Cells. In short, this was not a basement. This was a dungeon. A real dungeon. Not a ‘spare room’ like Bright Moon’s first prison cell they used to hold Shadow Weaver. Or even the hastily constructed Moon Shadow prison Glimmer ordered be built. This was a real, an established, an old jail. Possibly as old as Castle Dryl itself. Built right into the foundation.

Really threw the history of the Queendom into question. After all, Salineas, Plumeria, and the Kingdom of Snows didn’t have jails or prisons until just recently when the need arose for them. Yet, Dryl had an old and creepy looking dungeon.

Adora pulled on her chains for what might have been the hundredth time. There was very little slack and the more she rubbed the metal against her wrists, the more she chafed.

“How are you doing over there?” She tried to crane her neck to see around her own arm to where Bow was similarly strung up. His own chains suspending his arms above his head like hers were. Adora had a bit of a higher tolerance for this kind of treatment. Being raised in the Horde, they conditioned their young people to be able to tolerate all sorts of treatments that would be considered ‘inhumane’ by any other Queendom in Etherea.

Bow, on the other hand, did not share her upbringing or her conditioning. “Oh. You know. Hangin’ in there.”

At least he was still optimistic and positive enough to make jokes.

“Just waiting to hear your escape plan.” Bow announced.

Adora had no such escape plan. “Uh… I did have a plan before we surrendered.” She confessed, recalling her spur-of-the-moment, impulse idea that she chose not to implement. Draw her sword, transform into She-Ra, grab the child that claimed to be a six-day-old Hordak, and use them as a hostage. ‘Let us go or else your Horde Princess gets it!’ “You wouldn’t have liked it though.”

“What about now?” Bow asked.

She gave her chains another tug, already knowing the action wouldn’t achieve anything. “I don’t suppose you just so happen to have a lock picking kit hidden in your bracer?”

“Do you have a lock picking kit up your sleeve?” The archer shot back.

The answer for both of them was ‘no’. A lock picking kit was not something either of them even carried on them at all. Never mind in such a convenient place as their sleeve or arm guards.

Adora nodded, expecting as much. “Then we wait until they come get us. They’ll think letting us stew down here, chained up uncomfortably and denied food will soften us up for interrogation. When the guards come to get us and bring us to their Captain, that’ll be our chance to escape.”

“They have your sword.” Bow reminded her, as if Adora needed the reminder. His bow and his trick arrows he could always make more of. But there was only one Sword of Protection.

“We can get it back at some point during the escape.” It sounded more like Adora was making a promise to herself than trying to reassure Bow. That sword was more than just a weapon and the thing that made her She-Ra. “They wouldn’t stash it in the armory. The local occupying Captain will want to keep a close eye on it until she can turn it over to the real Hordak, or Entrapta. She’ll either lock it in her office, or else keep it on her. I’ll have to find her during the escape.”

“So, when the guards come to get us-?” Bow’s question was cut off when they head something thin and metallic crash on the floor. Clattering loudly in the dark.

They both peered through the dim room to the wall on the opposite side. The lighting was bad and the stone was naturally dark. But they could just barely make out the rectangular opening of what might have been an air vent, and peering out from that air vent was a pair of glowing fuchsia eyes.

“Hi.” They heard a child’s voice call through the mostly empty room. “I’m Hordak.”

Through the dark, they watched the figure of a child climb out of the vent, using that long mohawk of hair to let themself down from the tall height. The movement was measured and purposeful. The hair, and the body it was attached to, moving almost the same was Entrapta would move if preforming the same action.

The figure and those glowing eyes drew closer to Adora and Bow. They might have seemed more like Entrapta climbing out of an air vent by their hair. But stalking through the dim light, just the outline of a person, with glowing eyes on the pink-red end of the spectrum, was very intimidating. That was all Hordak right there.

Then they came under the beam of one of the poorly maintained light fixtures and it was once again clear that they were just a small child. No older than ten years –at least in appearance- younger than Frosta, even. They sucked on a tendril of hair as they stared up at Adora and Bow.

The pair blinked down at them. Not sure what to make of this sudden appearance.

“Hi.” The child said again.

“H-hi.” Bow stammered back.

There was a beat of silence in which the three just stared at one another. Adora and Bow not being able to do much else than just gape at the child that was an amalgamation of Entrapta and Hordak. And Dak just sucking on their hair as they studied the two intruders.

Then, “Did you know my mother?”

“Your mother?” Both Bow and Adora echoed in unison.

“You mean Entrapta, right?” Adora asked. She needed the clarification. She still did not believe that this child that looked ten was only days old.

Dak nodded. “The Princess of Dryl. I’m her heir, but I’ve never met her before.”

Upon hearing that, Bow’s eyes welled up with sympathetic tears. “You’ve never met your mom before? I can’t even imagine never knowing one of my dads!”

Adora, however, was unmoved. She spent her entirely life without parents. Only discovering that she might have had some very recently. This year, in fact. Many Horde soldiers grew up with out parents. That was just the way the Horde was. That was the way Hordak made it. Why should things be any different for Hordak’s… live-child? Instead, she pounced on the opportunity the child just gave her. “Yes.” She confirmed. “We were friends with your mother. She was a member of our Princess Alliance.” A strategic pause. “Before she was taken by Hordak and corrupted by evil.”

“I’m Hordak.” The child reminded her.

Clamping her mouth shut, Adora had to do some quick thinking to avoid alienating this child that might be their best shot at an easy escape attempt. They kept insisting that they were Hordak. Yet they knew nothing of Entrapta, or much of anything else from all appearances.

“But…” the child began, self-conscious and unsure, “…there is another Hordak.”

Reaching into a pocket of their overall, they pulled out one of Entrapta’s recorders.

“I wonder if Hordak would think differently if he wasn’t so concerned with proving himself to his Brother.” That was Entrapta’s voice. Listful, and longing. Like she wanted better things for the Lord of the Horde.

“Mother is talking about the other Hordak.” The little Hordak informed them. “What’s a clone?”

It was all Bow and Adora could do to blink.

“Uh- a clone?” Bow thought that was only theory. He didn’t think it was actually possible! Then again, if anyone was going to make viable cloning possible and successful, it would be Princess Entrapta of Dryl.

Young Hordak nodded and rewound the recorder a little bit. “The clone now resembles an infant seven months out of the womb. Fascinating! At this level of rapid growth, I hypothesize that it will enter puberty by the end of the week. Full adulthood by the end of the month! Hordak will have a new body sooner than I originally projected!”

“What’s a clone?” They asked again.

“Did she say Hordak will have a new body?” Adora echoed.

She took another look at the child. A harder look this time. A child that insisted that they were Hordak. Young. Too young to be Lord of the Horde. But almost identical to Hordak in appearance. Exactly what Adora imagined Hordak might have looked like as a child. Pointed ears and glowing eyes. Vertical nasal cavity, like a bat’s or maybe a skull’s. Talons on the ends of the fingers instead of the nails. A new body for Hordak.

Except there were inconsistencies.

The eyes were the wrong color. Hordak’s eyes –the real Hordak’s- were red. A neon or primary red. A true red. This child’s eyes were more of a fuchsia. A vivid pink that dabbled in under-hues of purple before returning to its parent red. The hair was longer and thicker. Hordak had a mowhawk of thin blue hair. This child also had a mohawk of blue, but the texture was different. Thicker, fuller. And it was prehensile. This child’s long mohawk could be used as an extra limb. That was definitely not a Hordak trait.

They couldn’t be a new body for Hordak. They had to be a forbidden love-child.

“A clone is a copy.” Bow supplied an answer to the Little Hordak’s question. “It’s what you call when you made a new person that’s exactly the same as an existing person.”

He hoped that explanation made sense. Bow wasn’t sure how much of the world the child –the clone?- understood of the world. Only being several days old.

Dak looked thoughtful. “Mother was making a clone of the other Hordak.” They mused out loud. “I’m Hordak.” A pause. “Am I… a copy?”

Adora opened her mouth to answer.

But Bow got to it first. “Oh, no, little guy, no.” He assured the clone. “You’re you. You’re your own person, and you don’t have to be like Hordak if you don’t want to. You can be whatever makes you happy.”

The clone perked up. “Mother wanted Hordak to be happy.”

That just confirmed it for Adora. Entrapta and Hordak were lovers. She might have made a clone for the evil Lord, but this kid wasn’t a clone. They weren’t an identical copy, they were a combination. They were a love-child. She looked at Bow, to see if he was having a similar reaction to all this information that she was.

He looked thoughtful, but not shocked or mortified. “Um, Little Hordak,” he began, “where is Entrapta –your mother- where is she?”

Little Hordak frowned. “Scorpia left to rescue her.”

“From Hordak?” Adora asked. It seemed like she managed to get through to Entrapta at the end there. That the Princess did not want to activate the portal after all. Did the change of heart cause a fall-out between the lovers? Did Hordak punish Entrapta for siding with She-Ra instead of him? She wasn’t there when Catra and Hordak activated the portal.

“From some place called Beast Island.” Dak supplied.

“Beast Island!” Adora was horror struck.

“What’s Beast Island?” Bow asked, concerned.

“It’s a penal colony.” She explained. “At least, I think it is. It’s an island in the middle of Growling Sea. There’s a prison compound on it and that’s where the Horde sends its enemies that need to be taken out of play but can’t be killed. Like political prisoners, or…” or Hordak’s lover that had fallen out of the evil Lord’s favor. Adora lowered her eyes, wondering if any of this would have happened if they hadn’t left Entrapta behind in the Fright Zone in the first place. Making a promise to herself, Adora swore not to leave Entrapta behind again. “We have to rescue her! Little Hordak-“ she quickly decided she did not like that name “-uh, Dak, if you help us get out of here, we’ll rescue your mother!”

“Scorpia already left to do that.” They reminded her. “She left he here and left.”

“Then we won’t leave you here.” Adora decided on the spur of the moment. Besides, Hordak’s child –and presumably his heir- might be useful for getting into secure Horde facilities. “You can come with us. We’ll rescue your mother together!”

“Adora!” Bow was mortified. “They are a child! A very sheltered child from the looks of it. You can’t just take them from their home and drag them half-way around the world to a penal colony!”

But Dak and Adora were ignoring him. The hybrid’s long prehensile hair reached up to Adora’s shackles. The tiny hair follicles reaching into the inner workings of the locks. Turning the tumblers until they heard a click. Adora’s chains fell open and she dropped to her knees. Everything had fallen asleep while in her suspended position, and her whole body felt like pins and needles.

She grinned at the child. “Thanks, Kid. Now can you free Bow. We need to get my sword back and then we’ll rescue Entrapta.”

…

#entrapdak #entrapta/hordak #entrapdak kid #clone baby au #genetic composite #ao3 #RenkonNairu #fanfiction #she-ra season 3

[thewarriorandtheking]

From Mordor to Moria - excerpt

Just as Thorin was thinking they had finally seen the last wave of goblins, a shout went up from First Hall. A large company of goblins and orcs had opened a new passage and were trying to cut the Dwarf army in half. Thorin and Kaylea Wolf exchanged glances, his son Durin was up there. Immediately they both took off running, across the makeshift bridge and up the stairs to the upper Hall. Ian and eight other Dorsai soldiers followed. Durin had set up a defensive line but the orcs were pressing them hard. More Dwarves followed Thorin to reinforce them, and the Dorsai drove into the orcs from one side, collapsing their formation. Thorin had just joined the fight when he looked to the side to see a cave troll leap out of the passage and knock his son to the ground with his mace, then land a blow on his back. The troll raised his mace again to strike, but Kaylea was faster and threw herself over the unconscious Durin. The creature’s mace hit her hard with a metallic sounding thud. Ajax launched himself at the creature, holding his arm back so he could not strike another blow. The troll moved to brush the wolf off, giving Thorin time to get there and with a boost from Aramsham take off the creature’s head, thankful once again for the sword Kaylea had given him. Thorin saw Kaylea roll off Durin grimacing in pain, one of her soldiers was there to haul her to her feet, another picked up his son and hurried from the battle back to the lower hall. Thorin turned to the attacking orcs, his face dark with anger. Moria had already cost him his grandfather, now the orcs had injured two who he loved most in the world. He shouted at his men to renew their attack and jumped into the fray like a man possessed, cutting down orcs to either side of him. Seeing the King leading the charge the Dwarves rallied and quickly beat the attack back. 

When the last orc had been slain Thorin directed his men to seal up the passage, there would be no more surprises. Then his thoughts swiftly turned to his son and his wife, he headed to the Second Hall to find them. He passed a wide entry to a kind of eating hall, the tables there now covered with the wounded, Dwarvish and Dorsai healers moving amongst them. Past that door was a smaller one with two of Kaylea’s soldiers standing in front of it. One of them saw him coming and opened the door. It was a sort of office, furnished with desks and chairs. Durin was laid out face down on a wide desk, the skin pulled back from his spine by what looked like two polished metal spiders. The machines were busily working inside his wound with their long legs, a Dorsai soldier stood beside, monitoring the work on a glowing display hanging in the air over them.

Thorin rushed to his son. “He lives?”

The soldier nodded. “He will be some time healing. Broken ribs, collapsed lung, several vertebrae in his spine were fractured. One more like that would have killed him, but he will live.” He made some kind of adjustment to the display, the spidery machines shifted in response. It gave Thorin a sinking feeling to see the bones of his son’s back exposed, but he knew well the power of Dorsai medicine. Thorin realized one of these machines is what Kaylea had probably used on him at the Battle of the Five Armies, more marvels from her world.  

“Where is Kaylea?” The Dorsai gestured behind him with his head. Thorin walked around the desk to find her stretched out on the floor, eyes closed, arms clasped over her chest.

Alarmed, he knelt beside her. “My love! Are you injured?”

She opened her eyes to look at him. “No, my king. Just need a few moments to catch my breath. That thing packed a punch.”  

“My son would not be alive if you had not been there,” Thorin stroked her hair, a worried look on his face. “Are you sure you are alright?”

“Never better,” Kaylea closed her eyes again. “I assume you took care of those orcs?” 

Thorin nodded, then sat on the floor holding her hand, he looked up at the soldier standing beside his son. “How badly was she hurt?”

“Could have been worse,” the Dorsai said, not looking up from his task. “The armor took most of the blow. Cracked a couple ribs, lots of internal bruising. She is going to be sore.”

Kaylea chuckled. “If you can feel pain, it means you are not dead, right soldier?”

“Yes, sir.” The soldier grinned.

Thorin shook his head, the Dorsai had the oddest sense of humor. Kaylea opened her eyes again, she reached up to touch Thorin’s beard.

“You have won a great victory today,” she said. “You should be out in the Hall celebrating.”

“How can I celebrate when two people more important to me than any kingdom lie injured?” Thorin shook his head. “I belong here with you, my love.”

“You belong out there with your people,” Kaylea replied. “Right now they are looking for you. Where is he? Where is the King of Moria?”

Thorin frowned at her. “Let them look. I will not leave you.”

“Odin’s beard!” Kaylea swore softly, giving him an exasperated look. She held up a hand. “Help me up, husband.” Thorin frowned but stood and took her hand, pulling her to her feet. Kaylea grimaced in pain as she straightened up, took a deep breath. Thorin looked at her concerned, he did not know what ‘internal bruising’ was, but it did not sound good. He moved close to her side, steadying her with his hands.

“You should rest,” he said seriously. 

Kaylea smiled wryly at him, straightening her heavy fighting clothes. “I was resting, you are the one who will not leave me to it.” She looked over at Durin, the surgery units had closed up the wound they had been working on along his spine and were working on his side now. “What is his status?”

“Vertebrae fractures and spinal cord are repaired, doing the ribs and the lung now, sir,” the soldier replied. “He will be in bed for a few days. When I am done here I will move him to the infirmary.”

“You did reset the protocols?” Kaylea actually felt that giving boosterspice to Thorin was the best mistake she had ever made, but it should not be repeated.

“Yes, sir”

Kaylea nodded, then headed to the door. She pulled it open and motioned for Thorin to go through. As soon as he walked into the Hall shouts went up around him. “The King! The King!” The Dwarves crowded around him, reaching out to touch him. Thorin smiled as he moved between them. Kaylea hung back, letting the Dwarves sweep their King away. The Hall was a buzz of activity. The Kzin telepath had the surviving orcs clearing the bodies of their fallen, he was sitting against the wall nearby watching them. The Dwarves had already brought stone from the side passage in the First Hall and were repairing and enlarging the broken bridge. Many Dwarves were wandering the Hall marvelling at the stonework. As Kaylea came out the door of the office she saw movement at the back of the Hall, Ian and a group of her soldiers disappeared down a tunnel, no doubt off to hunt some monsters. She went to stand beside Pilot, leaning against the wall to stay upright. The Kzin glanced up at her with tired eyes, he looked like he could use a few hours sleep.

Thorin was making his way to a large piece of fallen stone, he jumped up on it so he could be seen across the Hall. As the Dwarves became aware the King was among them they stopped what they were doing and gathered to listen.

“Today we have won a great victory,” Thorin began. A number of shouts went up around him, he held up his hands for quiet. “It is only the first step in reclaiming this great city, there is still much work to be done. Today we rejoice, we have taken back these halls, never again will we desert them!”

There was much shouting of agreement at this. Calls of “Hail the King! Hail the King of Moria!” rose from the crowd. Again, Thorin put up his hands for silence.

“I will not be King in Moria,” he said. There was much muttering at this, but Thorin spoke over it. “There is too much grief in this city for me. Even now I cannot look at these walls without thinking what they cost my father and grandfather. And it is a young man’s task to rebuild this great place.” There was much laughter at this, Thorin had not aged since the battle for Erebor, many were already calling him Thorin the Deathless. He smiled at the assembled Dwarves. “I know I do not look my age, but I feel it in my bones. I have devoted my life to Erebor. I will remain King there and Thror will rule there after me. This kingdom will be Durin’s task to rule.” There was more muttering at this, but also many sounds of agreement. Durin was well-liked by all and his bravery this day could not be questioned.

Thorin looked out at the assembled Dwarves. “I believe we still have a some whiskey in the wagons, lets us pass out a measure to all here tonight and drink to those that gave their lives for Khazad-dum. Because of their sacrifice we will be able to once again make this city the wonder of Middle Earth!” There was a great shout at this and Thorin jumped down, his men crowded around. The King spoke to each and thanked them for their bravery.

Voices were starting to rise from the crowd. “Hail to the King! Hail to the Queen! The Queen, the Queen!” Kaylea saw Thorin look over their heads at her, she straightened up willing the pain away.

“You’re up,” Pilot said wryly. Kaylea smiled at him and started to walk towards Thorin, The shouts continued as she made her way to join him. She held her arms out as she moved through the crowd, letting the Dwarves touch her and guide her towards the King. She did her best to keep from wincing when she was slapped on the back. When she reached Thorin he stepped forward and took her hands in his.

“Erebor has no Queen,” he said, smiling at his wife. “She has not yet been crowned.”

“A crown does not make a Queen,” said a grey-haired Dwarf standing next to him. “Make no mistake, your majesty, Queen Shurri is well remembered by all and we love the princes and princess as if they were our own, but those of us who have been with you since the Battle of the Five Armies know you would have preferred a different woman wore that crown.”

Thorin looked down, smiling crookedly. “I suppose that is not much of a secret,” he said. He looked up at Kaylea before him. “Erebor has been too long without a Queen. Soon we will return there and be married in a proper ceremony. Then I will put that crown on your head you have refused for so long.” He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it. A great shout went up from the Dwarves around them. “Hail to the King! Hail to the Queen!”

The old Dwarf laughed. “Much as my heart wishes to stay here, I will return to Erebor just to see that!”

Read the entire story on AO3 in Beyond Erebor - The Adventures of The Warrior and The King.

@fizzyxcustard

#thorin oakenshield #thorin x oc #fanfic #tolkien fanfic #the hobbit #writing #writing is my passion

[cartoonfangirl1218]

Deserve

So this is a little dark fic I did of what one of the first days of Shuriki’s rule was like for Esteban. I warn you there is whipping and just lots of angst for our poor Chancellor. Also my first time actually giving Shuriki a role so that’s new. Hope you enjoy.

Esteban's heavy pants seemed to echo loudly among the cells of the dungeon.The footsteps had signaled the leave of Shuriki’s personal guard minutes ago but he couldn't find the effort to move from his fetal position by the whipping post.

It was over. The guard said so himself, that his orders were fulfilled. Five hours of whipping just as Shuriki ordered.

Giving himself a few more seconds to breath, he slowly uncurled himself and gasped at the sharp stabbing pain in his ribs and the feeling of each bone in his spine cracking in protest to his movement. He felt the wetness of blood slicking down in his back and onto his pants and tried to hold back the bile in his throat.

He forced herself to standing position, but was overcome by a sudden dizziness and in his desperation to keep standing, he latched his hands onto the whipping post, knowing that if he fell he wouldn’t get up ever again.

Out of the dungeon. It was that simple. He clutched the post, nails digging into the wood, splinters adding a new pinprick of pain into his palm but he couldn’t fully process it. The only thing his mind could hear was the sharp cracking echo of the whip hitting his back.

He awkwardly shuffled himself so he could lean against the post, but that prove to be an agonizing decision. The second his back made contact, he lurched forward sending another wave of pain shuddering through his body. Hunched over he put his full weight on his ankles that were about to buckle from under him.

Head swaying from side to side he managed to hold onto the post again and open his eyes. After clenching them shut for the past three hours, they felt too heavy to lift to open. He didn’t want to open them. A stupid optimistic part of him hoped that if he didn’t open his eyes that everything would just go away.

Shuriki, the pain, the death, the guilt that had been growing and festering inside of him the moment Shuriki entered the palace with her wand and green smoke.  

But that hope withered away as he blearily looking around dark, barely lit dungeon. Cobwebs dusted the corners of cells, the proof that this had been a room used long ago.

Decades ago he thought to himself. The Castillo royal family had always been beloved by Avalor for their fairness and kindness even to criminals, choosing to punish with banishment rather than cruel physical torture. The dungeon was a forgotten room in their castle, almost like a museum display showing how the royal family used to handle things before progressing to a kinder solution.

He had a sick feeling that this dungeon was no longer going to be unused.

With each labored breath sending ripples of aches through his vertebrae, Esteban snapped back to his main goal. Getting out of the dungeon and facing the witch no matter what other punishment she had in store. He spotted the stairs leading back up to the hallways of the palace, it was only a few feet straight ahead.

He immediately regretted letting go of the door. The room became even darker in his uneasy sight if that was possible and without anything to hold onto, the ground was uneven under him.

He stumbled in the direction of the stairs and caught the railing, sinking to his knees to wait for his head to stop pounding.

He saw small droplets of blood dripping to the floor around him and groaned. Why did she do this? He promised he would obey her. He bowed to her when she coronated herself, he stood by silently as she exiled Victor from Avalor.

He hid silently as she killed his family.

He was a coward, and she knew that. Why did she want to punish him for helping her?

“Because she is a cruel, sadistic witch,” a small voice of common sense whispered, “And you better get used to it. This is your life.”

“Because you deserve it,” the truth rang out.

He did deserve it.

That’s what kept running through his head as the guard whipped him with a constant, unchanging speed.

One, two, CRACK!

He would not make a whimper just as his aunt and uncle did not make a sound as Shuriki disintegrated them.

One, two, CRACK!

He would be motionless just as his abuelos and Isabel were, stuck in a painting for eternity.

One, two, CRACK! 

He only allowed a silent stream of tears like the ones he saw in Elena’s eyes as she ran.

One, two, CRACK!

He had been so stupid and selfish. He thought they saw him as a nothing, a burden from their dead relatives. He had believed Shuriki would keep her promise and bring he and Victor to new heights that no one else would give them.  

One, two, CRACK!

The stings from whenever they praised Elena for getting a answer right on a geography test while they ignored him, or how they insisted that they let Elena win their fencing matches, those meant nothing compared to this pain.

One, two, CRACK!

He destroyed his own family. He helped to kill the king and queen. He brought in a tyrant. He was a monster.

One, two, CRACK!

This was all his fault.

One, two, CRACK!

He deserved all of this.

One, two, CRACK!

He laboriously managed to get up the stairs despite the fact that everytime he inhaled too deeply his back would shudder in protest and a wave of dizziness and pain washed over him. 

He opened the door and stepped into the light blue hallway; the brightness made him stumble back against the wall.

It was too bright, too overwhelming and it made his head hurt. Esteban slid to a sitting position, almost bending over like a small child as his head swayed. It felt like it was going to disconnect from the rest of his body.

He made a weak glance around the hallway, but couldn't tell where he was. He couldn’t remember the layout, the throbbing overpowered his thoughts.

Esteban put his arms on the ground to push himself up but they buckled under his weight. Forehead to the floor, he moaned quietly.

'Click' 'Click' 'Click'

The rhythmic sound of dainty heels tapping in impatience sent a wave a revulsion and fear, and guilt.

Esteban weakly lifted his head as Shuriki approached and instinctively tensed up.

"You look awful. Tell me, Esteban, do you wish that I killed you along with your family." Shuriki cupped his chin in her hands, with her nails digging into his cheek.

"Yes" he croaked but Shuriki kept staring at him with that wicked, self-satisfied smirk and he dazedly wondered whether he had actually said the words out loud or if he had thought them only. 

“It was nothing personal, you know. I simply wanted to make sure that you know that this is what will happen if you ever turn against me.” Shuriki said. 

Esteban gulped despite how choked up his throat felt with bile and unreleased sobs.

“And because you deserve it.” Shuriki let go of his cheek, “I originally thought a better way to torture you was to throw that painting of your trapped family out to sea but then again, I can always save that for another day if you anger me. I thought this was more suitable for a traitor. You’re a very helpful traitor, don’t get me wrong. But still, that’s what you are.”

Esteban was almost unable to comprehend the true terror and evil behind Shuriki’s words, the refrain of “You deserve it,” was taking up most of his headspace.

“Once you’re able to stand,” Shuriki purred with a small chuckle at the end of her words, “I need you to do some of the kingdom duties. Road work and trade deals etc. I have to go round up some noblins to build my gold supply.”

Esteban closed his eyes with exhaustion, the clicking of Shuriki’s heels as she walked away sounded in his head like whip cracks.

The world turned fuzzier punctuated by white spots, he tried to inhale but the pain made her stop and exhale instead. His thoughts were in a rush of gibberish which only caused his head to hurt more. The hunching over gave way to another explosion of pain in his back. His back in particular still felt the ghost the consistent skin-breaking whip.

A strangled moan ripped out of his dry, scratchy throat.

So much pain. 

The lights seemed to flash on and off and the pounding of his head started again. He tried to gasp quick short breaths, get some oxygen but the white spots came in rapid succession now with edges of darkness.

Silence overcame his tired mind and the darkness overtook the white spots, and ended. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuriki was back. 

The chaotic mess of the ballroom and the destruction of Queen Lucia’s crown had been evidenced enough, but Elena’s pale yet determined face confirmed all his worst fears.

She was back. She was back. She was back. 

A  feeling of dread pooled in the pit of his stomach as his mind went in a thousand different directions of the worst case scenarios and those awful memories of the dark times that he tried so hard not to dwell on.

He had tried to improve Avalor in honor of his fallen family and to assuage his guilt, and he liked to think he succeeded to some degree. But that did nothing to excuse or amend for his betrayal. It would mean nothing to his family whom he adored but would definitely hate him if they knew.

And Shuriki... he trembled at the thought of what she would do if she was able to be on the throne again.

That last thought seemed to numb his brain from his buzzing thoughts as he entered his room.

Mechanically he took off his shirt and turned so his back was facing his bathroom mirror and he could look over his shoulder just as he had done many times before.

Esteban stared long and hard at the faint scar. It ran diagonally from his right shoulder to mid back. 

He remembered how he had thought his whole back had been a bleeding mess, torn apart into thin strips of skin, but it turned out that the guard had chosen one spot and hit his mark each time to form the permanent ridge.

Like a phantom pain, he could feel the sting of the whip against his skin but he forced himself not to shudder. 

He deserved it.

#esteban flores #tw:abuse #tw:torture #angst #elena of avalor #my fanfic #my fanfiction #deserve #shuriki

[dezembergirl]

Seventeen

Part 7 of a Series (read 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6; as always inspired by @nonibanoni )

fandom: Skam

pairing: Noorhelm

originally published to ao3

Thanks to a loud banging noise and string of curses Noora jolted awake ten minutes before her alarm was due to go off. Her momentary confusion gave way to a mumbled «fuck» when the clock on her nightstand read 06:30. She groaned and let her head drop back into the pillow. It was just her kind of luck, the one time she actually had a halfway pleasant dream Eskild had the glorious idea of rummaging through the kitchen at half past six in the morning. She huddled the blanket over her head and pressed her arms up to cover her ears. When the noises didn’t relent after a minute and the sheet threatened to block out her oxygen supply Noora gave up and tossed the blanket from her body.

There was no use in going back to sleep now and she mentally noted down a speech to properly reprimand Eskild. Half past six, how the hell was he even up right now? At least Linn - the most noise sensitive person Noora had ever encountered - would take her side in this. It was already light outside so she didn’t have to bother with finding the light switch to collect her socks and a sweater. Their shared apartment was never properly heated, partly because the rent was already high enough without any additional heating expenses and the bigger reason being that besides her neither Eskild nor Linn cared about turning on the radiators. She made a mental reminder to scold Eskild about that later, she would not spend another winter sleeping with 3 layered blankets.

Dropping back down on the mattress, she pulled on the socks and reached for her buzzing phone. The list of notifications seemed to stretch endlessly when she scrolled down. It took another loud bang from the kitchen for her brain to kick into gear and make sense of spew of unread texts.

The only thing worse than waking up this early was waking up to find it was her birthday.

If she had to pick, April 6th was easily in the top three worse days of the year; right up their with her annual dentist visit and final exam’s day. Eying her tousled sheets she considered getting back under her blanket and hiding for the next 24 hours. She was an exemplary student when it came to never skipping a single lesson, so one day wouldn’t really hurt anybody, right?

But the thought of her friends disappointed faces if she should really stay home was enough guilt to get her up from the mattress. She rubbed at her eyes and heard the satisfying pop from her vertebras when she turned her head side to side, cracking her neck. She would get through today - for her friends - and who knew, it might not turn out to be as bad as her last few birthdays.

She immediately scratched that flash of optimism when the girls’ group text wasn’t only filled with a wave of congratulatory messages and hearts but also an already half-formed plan on where they would go out celebrating tonight. She thought about shutting them down right now but besides Sana’s text from 10 minutes ago, the rest of the messages had been sent somewhere between midnight and 2 am. It was useless to protest now and it would be more effective in person anyways.

Noora scrolled through the rest of the messages, a few from other people at school and her friends in Spain. Her heart sank when she found her parents’ annual message, wishing her well and good luck for the year ahead. She wrote back a curt thank you and did her best to suppress the squirming in her stomach.

The kitchen had quieted down and opening her bedroom door, Noora almost ran face first into Eskild, holding a plate and her favourite mug.

«Oh, what the fuck Eskild?» Noora squeaked and scolded herself for not managing to sound pissed at him whatsoever.

But before she could go off on an angry tirade on how fucking inconsiderate it was to make that much noise in the morning, her eyes caught the plate in his hands, complete with a burning candle sticking slightly off center out of a - no doubt freshly bought - chocolate muffin.

«What …» she started.

«Happy birthday old lady!» he forced the plate into her hand. «I know I know, it’s not an actual cake but I promise it tastes good. And we got you your favorite tea and I promise I’ll do the groceries and toilet paper today, so you don’t have to worry about any of that.»

Noora must have stared at him with a shocked expression because his wide eyes faltered and his brows furrowed in worry. He opened and closed his mouth, apparently trying to figure out where he had gone wrong but before he could say anything she threw her arms around his neck.

The tea that was still in his hand half spilled on her well worn ‘I heart Madrid’ sweater but she couldn’t bring herself to care. Eskild smelled like a mixture of beer and weed and when she pulled back to look at his beaming face his eyes were smaller than usual; she faintly recalled him announcing he would go out last night.

«It’s perfect, thank you!» Noora said.

«You like it?» he leaned against the door frame and Linn poked her head out beside him.

«Yes, of course.»

«Okay, okay, you have to blow out the candle and wish for something.» Eskild nodded towards the plate.

She did, even though wishing for everything to stay like it was right now felt incredibly cheesy.

After a few bites of the incredibly sugary muffin and listening to Eskild gush about a tall and dark boy he met at a bar around 4 am she checked her phone again. There were a few new messages in the girl chat but she wasn’t entirely sure whether to be disappointed or relieved that William hadn’t texted her. If she was lucky he might not even realize her birthday was today; it probably wouldn’t end well anyway.

As expected her friends’ excitement outdid her own by a mile. Eva and Vilde revealed a box containing a cake drowned in sugary frosting; the slightly squished appearance made her think back to their Harry Potter marathon from three weeks ago at Eva’s sleepover. Several people came over between lessons to congratulate her. Sarah and Ingrid gave her a quick hug while Jonas and Isak found her on her way to the bathroom while the rest of the girls had stayed behind in their English classroom; the Penetrator party had been a week ago and Eva and Jonas were still hard set on ignoring each other.

It wasn’t unusual for her to not see William or any of his closer friends during her school day as the 3rd years spent most of their breaks smoking and doing god knows what down the street from the B building. She supposed it was a good thing, seeing as the girls refused to leave her side except for separate lessons. This meant, Vilde was a constant shadow and she caught her peeking at her phone multiple times as Noora texted back thank you messages. It would have been easier to ignore her stares if she had indeed had nothing to hide; but she did.

She tried to protest, when Eva puller her into the third floor bathroom minutes before their last lesson for the day but retaliated when her friend gave her a stern look.

«Did Vilde see us?» Eva closed the door and squatted down to check the stalls.

«No, I don’t … What’s going on?» Noora asked

«You» Eva bore her pointed finger into Noora’s shoulder «better pray Vilde doesn’t check Instagram in the next 40 minutes.»

«What?» she stared at Eva, who had pursed her lips into a smirk.

«He isn’t exactly being subtle.»

Noora tried to retaliate but stopped when Eva’s knowing look finally clicked into place. Her stomach dropped. «What did he do?»

Eva was only too eager to puller out her phone and after a few quick swipes presented Noora with William’s newest Instagram post - dated 10 minutes ago.

@magnussonwilliam Someone deserves flowers today

«Oh fuck» her brows furrowed.

«I was thinking more along the lines of, damn that’s the most romantic thing since Leo froze to death for Kate in Titanic.»

«Oh my god, Eva this is not funny.» Noora snatched the phone from her friend’s hand and scrolled through the - already 203 - likes. «This is really bad.»

Eva laughed and pulled them both out of the bathroom. «As I said, better hope Vilde doesn’t see it.»

Trailing behind Eva to their Spanish class room, her cheeks turned flaming red when a comment from one of the third year girls popped up under the post ‘Told you all, he has a girlfriend’.

Eva kept throwing her knowing glances throughout their reading assignment and as if things couldn’t get any more awkward the next time her phone buzzed, it was a text from William himself. Seeing Noora’s entire head turn into a very unflattering shade of pink Eva almost choked on her own laughter and ignored her unnerved glares.

She turned towards the wall away from Eva and unlocked her phone.

William: pick you up after school?

Noora bit her lip. This was indeed getting worse by the second.

Noora: NO!!

Noora: are you insane?

Eva squirmed in the chair beside her, craning her neck to get a look at Noora’s phone.

William: ??

Noora: the instagram post, really?

William: Chris agreed it was sweet

She bit her lip to keep from hissing at the display. She’d literally kill him if he told Chris. Not that Eva didn’t know more than she deemed appropriate already, but he’d promised to keep it to himself. Her heart was thumping against her throat and her fingers needed several tries to type the find the keys on the screen.

Noora: You told Chris?

William: No … well yes, but he doesn’t know it’s u

Noora: that’s not reassuring whatsoever …

William: I’m sorry, I’ll pick you up after school and make it up to you

Noora: No! I’m going to lunch with the girls. I’ll text you later!

She didn’t bother waiting for his reply before shoving the phone into her backpack. She ignored Eva’s raised eyebrows for the rest of the lesson.

Eva’s smirk and William’s audacity to presume she wouldn’t have anything better to do on her birthday than to make out at his apartment made her head boil and the last bell couldn’t come soon enough. As if a few lousy flowers would make her forget all the very valid reasons, dating - the word itself seemed absurd in connection with William Magnussen - him was a very unwise choice. Before Eva could even put away her Spanish folder, Noora pushed past the rest of the students into the hallway and down the stairs. To her annoyance she didn’t get very far when Vilde blocker her way two corridors down.

Vilde - who was seemingly ignorant of the Instagram post - pulled her out into the yard to wait for the other three. It was just past three o’clock and the yard was filled with students saying goodbye to their friends. Still, she turned her head every few seconds to check if William was anywhere close. Vilde must have noticed her nerves because she found her staring every time she turned to look at her. Sana and Chris caught up with them five minutes later and Eva shook her head at Noora in feigned annoyance.

«Where to for lunch?» Sana prompted before either Eva or Vilde could make another precarious comment.

«It’s not Friday, but I was thinking tacos?»

The rest nodded in agreement.

They’d made it past the gate and around the corner when Noora froze mid step and caused Eva to shriek in surprise. William and Chris, both their noses in their phones, leaned against the black Porsche, parked not ten meters from the school corner. At the sudden noise both looked up and Noora collected every last ounce of her self control to ignore the forming smirk on William’s lips; knowing just how good it felt kissing them made it all that much harder.

Chris and Sana stayed back and watched the scene unfold while Eva padded Noora’s shoulder and didn’t quite manage to stifle her giggles. Vilde was beaming and Noora hoped she was too distracted to catch William winking at her. Eva didn’t miss it but instead of embarrassing her any further she sauntered up to Chris who licked his lips.

«The party was amazing.» Vilde had positioned herself in front of William. «I hope you got enough donations. The whole auction thing was such a brilliant idea.»

Noora cringed and met William’s gaze over Vilde’s shoulder. She did her best to narrow her eyes and give him a stern look but the execution didn’t succeed when her lips tucked into a traitorous smile. Vilde kept rambling until Sana had the good grace to nudge her along. In one moment that seemed like the perfect movie coincidence, Chris and Eva where distracted with each other and the other three girls already heading down the street. To quick for her to protest William snatched her arm to pull her towards him.

«Happy birthday, text me after lunch!» he was so close to her ear, he barely had to raise his voice.

Noora bit her lip and gave him a nod. His hand squeezed hers before he let her go and turned back to Chris, who had trapped Eva against the car.

Noora had never been the biggest fan of birthdays, so the small mountain of presents her friends pulled out on the table made her heart comfortably warm and her head dizzy. Two books, one lavender scented candle and a box of handpicked sweets laid between the emptied taco baskets. She gave them all a tight hug and for the first time since Noora could remember she was sad when the birthday dinner - technically lunch - was over and they all parted ways. Of course Vilde, Eva and Chris had done their best to persuade her to a party later but she declined and promised to come to the next buss party without any protests.

To avoid any further run-ins she had made William promise to park at least two blocks away. He was again leaning against his car - it was a cool, expensive, but cool car nevertheless.

«Don’t ever do that again!» she whispered when he pulled his arms around her and only huffed in reply. His hands rubbed the tension from her back and she relaxed into his tall frame.

«Happy birthday» he pulled back to meet her eyes and she couldn’t hold the smile back any longer when his thumb brushed along her cheekbone and he finally placed a quick kiss on her lips. He let go to reach down to lift the modest bouquet of tulips from the hood of his car and offer them to her.

«Thank you.» she intertwined their fingers and he returned her smile.

«I’m sorry about the Instagram post. I can delete it if it bothers you?»

«No, no it’s okay.» she cocked her head to peer at him. «I was just a little overwhelmed earlier.» She pulled him down for a longer kiss. They took their time before he opened the passenger side door for her and jumped in beside her.

«Are you up for a proper date?» William flipped his hair back; without the hoodie, it constantly fell back into his eyes and she mustered a smirk when she helped him pull a few strands behind his ear.

«Where the other ones not proper dates?»

«Well, you refused to call them dates.»

«And what makes you think I’ll change my mind today?» Noora raised her chin and straightened her spine against the ridiculously soft leather seat.

«Oh good god.» he groaned and she giggled when he reached over to tickle her. «We’ll go and then you can decide what you wanna call it afterward, deal?»

«Deal» she grinned and let him pull her over the center console for a kiss.

Granted she was painfully aware of William’s disposition to do things that were more than just cliché and bordered on cheesy but he did it in such an endearing way, she couldn’t bring herself to dislike him for it - despite what she might tell herself and Eva. Still she had expected him to take her back to his apartment or even the cinema; after all fresh tulips and a surprise ‘date’ on her birthday seemed romantic enough.

Apparently, she had underestimated him. When he stopped the car after a ten-minute drive through downtown Oslo, the 80% glass building that was the Opera house loomed over them.

«Seriously?» she raised her eyebrows at him. This was maybe the most touristy spot in the whole country, gracing the back of basically all postcards titled ‘Oslo’. Though despite the cheesy undertone she couldn’t deny that it was breathtakingly beautiful.

William chuckled beside her and when they exited the car, there were only a handful people littered across the building with one or two dragging around big touristy cameras. Sunset was maybe half an hour away and pink and orange tones already reflected in the smooth water.

On instinct she meant to reach for his hand but found him occupied with carrying two blankets and a closed basket; so he offered her his arm instead and she threaded hers through his elbow.

The flats she had chosen this morning definitely weren’t the perfect gear for hiking up the opera house but the view from the top was worth her panting lungs and flushed cheeks. William put one blanket on the stone panels and motioned for her to sit while he busied himself with fiddling open the basket. He retrieved two thermos jugs and one small paper container for them each.

«This might really be the most cliché thing you could have done, and that’s saying something,» she said while William sat down next to her, close enough for their sides to bump together, and pulled the second blanket over their feet.

«I considered buying you 17 red roses.» his hand traced down her back again. «And a giant teddy bear.»

«I guess, you have a point.» she let her head fall against his chest. «Thank you!»

«Mhm,» he murmured and pulled her closer. His fingers were tracing her shoulder as he massaged the muscles beneath her skin. He brushed against the tops of her collarbones that peaked out under her shirt and then wandered up her throat placing kisses along the sensitive skin next to her pulse. Noora sighed and closed her eyes when he reached her chin. Despite the public location, his touch felt more intimate than the days before. Her skin flared at his touch and her lips craved his. Instead, his fingers teased the corners of her mouth before he placed a peck on the tip of her nose, which made her giggle and pinch his side in revenge.

He gave in and kissed her properly, shallowing the sighs that escaped her mouth. Heat blossomed in her belly and she felt her cheeks flush despite the mild spring breeze. Her finger found his scarp and pushed into his hair while pulled her closer and closer towards him until she practically sat in his lap. When she pulled away after feeling her lungs ache at the loss of oxygen, his eyes were glossed over and he meant to continue their kiss when she gently put her hand on his chest.

«First, hot cacao» Noora smirked and disentangled herself from his lap to reach for the two thermos jugs.

William groaned, flipped back his now tangled hair but took one of the bottles from her. He must have upped the cacao contents in his recipe because when she uncapped hers, the rich chocolate smell took her breath away for a moment. Under different circumstances, she might have waited for it to cool down but the setting sun was dragging the temperatures down with it and she was thankful for the heat spreading through her torso. When she looked up he was watching her intently and she gave him a kiss on the cheek. «It’s delicious!»

William, clearly pleased with her reaction, offered her a piece of dark chocolate cake from the paper box and took the other for himself. «I meant to buy you candles as well.»

«It’s okay. I think I’ve blown out enough candles for my next ten birthdays today.»

They ate and drank in silence after that and Noora found herself pressing closer to his chest as they watched a family with three little kids play on the incline. He rubbed her arms and made sure the blanket was tucked around them as the sun disappeared into the golden water. She hummed in content while he played with the ends of her hair. They watched the last flickers of light disappear and neither wanted to move from their position that currently was half a hug and half Noora sitting in his lap. When her fingers grew red and numb from the cold they reluctantly made their way back to his car.

During the drive to her apartment she had to repress the impulse to reach for his face again and instead she traced her finger up and down his free arm. He put the Porsche into park in front of the blue door and they eyed each other for a moment until he reached over to pull her close again. Noora hummed against his lips and decided that there was no superior feeling than kissing William after a cup of hot cocoa. His mouth tasted like the faint reminders of his mint gum and overwhelmingly like the baking chocolate powder he used for her hot cacaos.

It took several angry honks from the car behind his for them to pull apart and she left the car with the promise of calling him tomorrow. When she turned the key to their apartment Eskild was already holding a glass of sparkling wine, clearly more than ready for the next episode of Paradise Hotel. The tulips were put in a vase in her room under Eskild's scrutinizing eyes.

«Your lips are .. ehh a little smeared.» He laughed as Noora scrambled for a mirror to examine her swollen lips and properly tousled hair. William seemingly had a very adverse effect on her usually perfectly put together appearance.

Noora: Thank you for today, you were right it was a proper date!

William: I’m glad, talk tomorrow, good night birthday girl x

#noorhelm #Skam #noora sætre #william magnusson #noora x william #william x noora #noorhelm fic #skam fic #birthday fic #gratulerer med dagen Noora

[ddaddsprompts]

How would the dads react to seeing scars all over Dadsona's torso?

This ask is dark, so I totally understand if you don’t feel comfortable answering it. How would the dads react to their boyfriend confessing that they were raped before they met Alex, and they have PTSD because of it? 

Please note that for Brian’sscene, since he theoretically saw Dadsona’s naked torso during the fishing datein canon, I chose to change that so he sees the scars for the first time onlylater.Also, Robert’s scene begins with a flashback that doesn’t describe the actualact, but I still wanted to warn you. Just skip the first paragraph (it’s italicized)to avoid that.

Put under read-more because of the subject matter. - Mod Mare

🥃 Help, you screamed, but the hands pressing down your neck trapped thesound in your throat. You struggled, clawed, thrashed, but you were too weak,he hovered above you, knife in his hand and—

“Y/N!” You sit up so fast, you nearly getwhiplash. Your heart is beating hard in your throat, making it impossible tospeak. You claw at your skin, trying to ease the tension, but hands grip yoursand pull them off again. “Y/N, calm down, ‘s just me.” The rational, logicalpart of your brain recognises the voice and tries to convince your sub-consciousnessto calm down again, but your fight-or-flight instincts are flaring. Youstruggle against the strong arms that envelop you, try to push against thestrong chest you’re pulled against, but the other person is stronger. “JesusChrist, kid!” Rough, calloused hands rub patterns into your skin;normally, someone touching your back, your scars, would have send you evendeeper into panic, but the feeling of those hands in particular triggers yourbrain. You still, blinking fully awake. Robert carefully draws back, but keeps hisarms around your waist. His face, normally so unreadable, is like an open booknow, literally displaying his concern and worry. “Wanna talk about it?” Yourfirst instinct is to say no and act like nothing happened, but you’re tooexhausted to lie. Extracting a hand, you pull up your shirt. Robert’s facecloses off, but not fast enough, you see a flicker of pure, cold fury in hiseyes. “I was raped,” you whisper. “Before Alex. I still suffer.” Robert gritshis teeth. He takes a deep breath to calm down, then pulls you close again. “Fuckinghell, kid, I’m sorry. I’ll find that fucker and castrate him.” Despite thesituation, you laugh, which eventually turns into crying. Robert holds you wordlessly,offering his silent support.

🍸 You stare down at the small device in your hands, which you’d bought justfor this, but it was no guarantee Joseph wouldn’t recognise you. The priestside of the confessional booth is opened. Even though the wall separating youmostly obscures the view, the silhouette is visible and it looks familiar. Allyour remaining doubts are washed away when Joseph speaks. “There’s no need tobe shy or nervous. I’m here to help you.” You switch on the device, hoping itwould completely alter your voice. “Father, I…” Though you had prepared exactlywhat you want to say, now the words won’t come. You close your eyes. “I’vewithheld important information from my partner even though I know I should tellthem.”“I’m not a priest, so there’s no need to call me ‘father’. Minister more thansuffices. Now, of what nature is the information you’re talking about? Are youcomfortable telling me that?”You exhale. “I… I was raped. Before them. I have scars… a-all over my chest.A-and… I suffer f-from… that. Even though it’s been so long…” You shudder andwrap your arms around yourself. Joseph, on the other side of the wall, shiftsin his seat. “I’m so sorry to hear that… why haven’t you told your partner yet?What stops you?” With shaking hands, you turn off the device again. Count toten once more. Inhale. Speak. “Because I’m scared he might not want to be withme anymore.” A second goes by. You hear Joseph gasp, then, the scrape of achair being pulled backwards across the floor. The door to your side is thrownopen and Joseph pulls you into his arms, guiding your face into the crook ofhis neck. “Y/N, I’d never leave you because of something like that. I love you,so much. I’m sorry you suffered so.” You sob and cling to him.

☕ A few weeks ago, you scared Mat by hiding behind the door and jumpingout to startle him. He doesn’t peck you as the type of person to take hisrevenge – after all, he’d reacted pretty chill, once he got past his initialsurprise – so you didn’t expect any kind of payback, certainly not after somuch time has passed. Naturally, that’s when Mat strikes. Your computer pings,alerting you to an incoming message on DadBook just after you entered yourbedroom to get dressed for your date with Mat. Throwing the towel on your bed,you walk up to the desk to see who it was. Suddenly, something comes jumpingout from under the desk. You scream and stumble backwards, your knee-pits hitthe bed and you fall onto it, now crying too. “Shit, babe, I’m so sorry, I didn’tmean to startle you—“ Mat falls silent once he notices the scars on your nakedchest. Had you been in control of yourself, you would have tried to coveryourself, but you are shaking in panic, still screaming at the top of yourlungs, probably loud enough to alert the whole cul-de-sac. Carefully,exaggerating his movements, Mat sits down next to you and wraps an arm aroundyou. You tense, but the familiar smell of coffee and his soothing voice pushthrough the fog of fear, just enough for you to realise it’s him. Mat gentlypulls you close, your head in his lap, and cups your face in his hands. “I’m sosorry, babe. I didn’t mean to…” You numbly shake your head and curl in onyourself. An hour later, once you’ve calmed down somewhat, you tell him whereyour scars come from. He sings to you, his voice trembling and tears in hiseyes, as he holds you.

🌹 Damien told you about him being trans late week and ever since, you wondered. Asked yourself whether you shouldtell him of your own secret, about your own scars. He trusted you with his, theleast you could do was return the gesture, but truth be told, you’re scared.And apparently, Damien could tell something is bothering you. You’d never beenthe best at hiding your emotions, but after,you became good at burying your wounds under layers of awkwardness and badjokes. Around Damien, your usual attempts at misdirection don’t work. Ifanything, they seem to make things worse. Half an hour after he came back fromwork, Damien asks you to join him in his study. His face is blank, but hiscontrol does not extend to his eyes. “Y/N,” he begins once you’re seated. “Eversince I told you, you’ve been acting strange and you seem tense. If you’re notcomfortable with me being trans, please just tell me, so—““I was raped,” you say. The words just slipped off your tongue and now they areout, you cannot take them back. “Before Alex. It still affects me. I get nightmares.Panic attacks. I have scars, physical, all over my torso, and mental. You’re…you’re the second person I ever told. I didn’t know whether I should…” You buryyour face in your hands, taking deep, deliberate breaths. There’s a shufflingnoise before Damien wraps his arms around you. You lean into him, stifling asob. “I’m so sorry, my love. I didn’t… Thank you for telling me.” Gently,Damien squeezes you, whispering reassurances into your hair.

🎣 Brian runs his hand along your spine, feelingeach individual vertebra through the fabric of your shirt. You take a deepbreath and try to push down the flames of anxiety that threaten to flare upinside your chest. It’s one of those rare evenings where Daisy isn’t at homeand you and Brian have the house all to yourselves. The credits of the movieyou watched continue running on screen, but neither of you pay much attentionto it. So far, you haven’t really been intimate, but something tells you itmight happen tonight. Maybe it’s the way he kept on touching you throughout themovie, kissing your cheek, lips and neck, maybe it’s that look in his eyes, theintensity. The rush of fear cursing through your veins at the thought makes youtense. Brian immediately stills, his hands settling on your hips, and looks atyou with a concerned expression. “Are you okay? I can stop-“ You shake yourhead and sit up. You’ve been dreading this conversation from the get-go, butyou’d rather he learns of it now thanlater because of an anxiety attack or worse. Under Brian’s questioning gaze,you slowly lift your shirt over your head. You clutch it to your chest, lookinganywhere but him, afraid of what you’d see. “Oh babe…” Brian whispers. “Whathappened?” You inhale, exhale; the pressure on your lungs still doesn’tdisappear. “Before Alex… I was… I was r-raped. I-I still get n-nightmares.” Hedoesn’t say anything for a while, just looks at you as if he was mourning. Thenhe pulls you into his arms, holding you close, and murmurs sweet nothings whileyou cry into his shoulder.

👟 Craig has seen the scars before, first incollege, then when you went on your camping trip the other day after meetingagain against all the odds, but he never asked where they are from. You havethe strong feeling he’s waiting for you to be ready to tell him about it andeven if you’d never be, he would respect it. The girls are at their mother’stoday, which means a relaxing day for the two of you. You’re chilling on Craig’sbed and you’re considering dozing off when Craig catches your attention byhumming. You roll over on your side and cock your head with a questioning look.“You know how I still have the numbers of a few old college buddies?” You justnod and gesture for him to continue. “Well, one of them forwarded me another bro’snumber and they just asked about you. Do you remember RedRocket Keith?” Themoment he says that name, your blood runs cold. Vaguely, you’re aware of Craigcalling your name, but it’s like your head is submerged under water and he’smiles away. You struggle as arms wrap themselves around you, but when the distinctscent of Craig fills your nose, you go limp, burying your face in his neck. Hecalmly guides you through breathing exercises until your heart stops racing,then continues to hold you, not asking what that was about, giving you all thetime you need. You lick your lips, struggling to find words. “I… r-rememberhim. E-every goddamn day. He haunts my dreams. H-He… h-he… at th-that party…he-he r-rap—“Craig gently shushes you. “I understand, bro, I understand. I’m so sorry. Iwish I’d known…” You weakly shake your head, relishing in the warmth of hisstrong embrace.

📖 Quizzmaster Quinn is sick, so Hugo and you go to a nearby restaurant knownfor its excellent food. You’re a bit disappointed, having looked forward to theparadise that was delicious cheeses and an excited Hugo, but he cheers you upagain, so that, by the time you’re seated and order, you’re grinning again.That is, until your eyes spot a familiar-looking face at the back of the room.Rationally, you know it can’t be him,but that doesn’t stop your instincts from going haywire, your brain sendingadrenaline through your whole body in preparation for your flight. Because yousure as hell wouldn’t fight. Hugo says something, but it’s as if you two areseparated by a wall of cotton; his voice is muted, barely understandable. “I-Ineed to use the bathroom,” you excuse yourself, then you’re on your feetalready, practically running. You throw closed the door, but it opens a fewseconds later as Hugo comes rushing inside. He immediately puts his hands onyour shoulders. You see his mouth moving, but no sound reaches your ears for awhile, the ringing in your head too loud. It takes minutes, but finally, youcalm down again. Hugo guides you to lean against the wall. “Y/N, what’s wrong? I’venever seen you so panicked.” You can’t help but snort at that. That’s not eventhe worst panic attack you’ve ever had. “I…” You hesitate, but his concernedexpression convinces you to say it. “There was a man… he looked…like… t-the manwho… r-raped m-me and l-left me with dozens of scars.” Hugo’s eyes go wide. Youexpect him to bury you in questions, demand names and all, but he surprises youby silently taking you into his arms. “I’m sorry, dear, I didn’t know.” Hekisses the top of your head and squeezes you. Wrapped in his strong arms, youfeel safe and protected.

#dream daddy #dream daddy: a dad dating simulator #dream daddy a dad dating simulator #ddadds #ddadds imagine #rape mention tw #violence mention tw #assault mention tw #Anonymous