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lily-janus · 2 years

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Janus' Birthday

Summary: Patton and Remus struggle to think of what to do for their favorite snake boy's birthday.

Pairing: platonic Intrumoceit

Warnings: mentions of food and Remus being gross and extra fluff

Credit: this is based on my awesome friend's drawing @lost-in-thought-20 thank you for letting me use your amazing art as inspiration!💛💙

Word count: 1330

Remus is restless.

Not anything new, really, he always has the tingly sense deep inside him that urges him to move and act and do something.

But today’s different, today he’s restless for a very specific reason: Janny’s birthday’s coming up… And he has no clue what to give him.

It’s ridiculous, and not in the fun way, in the frustrating way. Jan-Jan’s his oldest and only true friend! And he’s creativety for fuck’s sake! He should think of something for his snake boy in no time!

But no! His mind is empty of ideas just when he needs them the most!

He groans, inspiration's a bust, a real pain in the ass sometimes…

He shuffles in his drawers for something to put in his mouth. Of course his deodorant will be best, but really anything he can chew will help get his creative juices flowing. But after eating every moldy piece of food he can find on his room’s floor and still coming up with nothing, he decides some fresh air and annoying some people might help him more.

So he pushes his door open and, morningstar resting on his shoulder, he strolls off towards the mindscape’s kitchen.

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Patton is restless.

Not in his usual, cheery, bouncy way. But in a nervous kind of way.

He paces back and forth in his room, occasionally sneaking a glance at the shawl Janus gifted him for his birthday. He has to give him something equally perfect. Or, better yet, more perfect. But what? What could possibly beat that? Not that it’s a competition, but if the ever stoic and closed off Janus gifted him something so personal and thoughtful, surely Patton, the most sensitive side in the mindscape, should do the same, if not more so.

Sure he can bake him a cake, but that’s obvious, it’s not nearly enough. He needs to do something more, something deep, something he knows Janus needs but is not willing to ask for it…

But his mind comes up with nothing. He can maybe ask for Roman’s help but… He fears the creative side is not on best terms with the deceitful side… yet…

Patton sighs, maybe baking will help him come up with something, and he could get a start on that cake.

Nodding to himself, Patton heads out of his room and towards the mindscape’s kitchen.

…

Patton whistles to himself as he mixes the yellow frosting in the metal bowl, smiling at the rich smell coming from the oven as the cake slowly bakes inside. His mind is racing with what he could do for Janus, dismissing ideas and coming up with new ones.

He’s so lost in his own thoughts that he doesn’t notice the looming figure coming up behind him until it lets out a loud Boo and causes Patton to jump a few good feet in the air as he turns around sharply.

“Remus! He-hey there!” Patton greets the duke, heart pounding in his chest from his little trick.

Remus grins. “Sup Padre! Whatcha cookin there?” Remus asks, licking his lips at the smell.

“Oh! It’s nothing, I just felt like baking.” Patton laughs nervously. He wants this to be a surprise and Remus is not exactly what one would call a secret keeper.

Remus giggles. “You sure about that, Patty Boy? You seem pretty nervous for someone who’s ‘baking nothing’ “ Remus says with air quotes to emphasize the statement.

Patton swallows, mixing the frosting a little too fast than is required.

Remus eyes the yellow frosting in the bowl and grins knowingly at him.

Patton sighs. “Alright fine, you got me. Please don’t tell him anything, I want this to be a surprise” Patton pleads.

Remus shrugs. “Yeah, sure. Speaking of Snakey…” Remus drapes his arm casually on Patton’s shoulder and leans on it a little. “Do you have anything else planned?”

Patton shakes his head. “Bean trying to think of something all morning… I thought baking might help me come up with something but… So far nothing.” He says with a grimace.

“Ah” Remus says, patting his back. “It seems like we have the same problem, Pat.” He says as he dips his finger and the frosting and licks it with exaggerated slurping sounds that have Patton wincing a little.

“Hey! Leave some for Jan!” He says a bit too loudly and Remus giggles.

“Aaaanyway, since we both can’t think of ideas, how about we brainstorm?” Without waiting for an answer, Remus grabs Patton’s wrist and starts dragging him to his room. Patton barely manages to turn off the oven, before being dragged on, mixing bowl still in hand.

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Janus wakes up… surprisingly peacefully. He’s used to Remus bouncing on his bed like an excited puppy that can’t wait to go on a walk. But this time he wakes up naturally and his room is suspiciously quiet, Remus is up for something, that’s for sure, and he feels like he knows what this is about. One look at today’s date confirms his suspicion.

Today’s the day the fandom dubbed as ‘Janus’ birthday’. Which is pretty ridiculous if you ask him, naming his first appearance in the series as his ‘birthday’ or whatever. Yes he made Patton a gift for his but that’s cause the little goofball is so into this stuff that Janus had to play along. It’s not something he really wants for himself. But there’s no stopping Remus… He learned that a long time ago. So he decides to play along and get this over with as soon as possible.

He finishes getting ready for the day and opens his door a crack, peering outside suspiciously before opening it the rest of the way and stepping cautiously outside. He begins to walk slowly towards the kitchen for some breakfast, noting how eerily quiet the entire mindscape is this morning.

As he goes down the last staire, he stops. The living room and the kitchen are both pitch black. Something’s definitely up. With a sigh, Janus carefully makes his way to the other side of the room to turn on the light switch, he does just that and, as he’s momentarily blinded by the sudden brightness of the room, he hears two voices yelling “surprise!” From behind him and two pairs of arms coming up behind him and wrapping his shoulders in a tight embrace, making Janus’ cheeks warm immediately.

He cranes his neck to see both Remus and Patton on both his sides, Patton’s on his right and Remus grinning at him from his left. Remus reaches out and takes off Janus’ hat. “Remusss…” he hisses “I thought we agreed you’ll stop doing tha-” But he’s cut short as Remus places a new hat on his head, nearly identical except this one is circled by little birthday flags.

“Happy birthday Snakey!” Remus grins at him, unphased by Janus’ glare at him.

“Yeah! Happy birthday kiddo!” Patton exclaims happily.

Janus folds his arms on his chest uncomfortably, not used to such close intimacy, and certainly not with two people at once. “I don’t…” he trails off, breath coming a little faster as both their warm touch lingers. “I do not enjoy cuddles and… Hugs, Patton.” He tries but Patton just winks knowingly, somehow able to see through Janus’ walls.

“Of course you don’t, that’s why you’re melting into our hug.” He says cheerfully with a wide smile.

Janus’ cheek’s color deepens at that. “I’m not-”

“Now come on, Janny! We have lots of surprises waiting for you in the kitchen!” Remus says, breaking their hug and tugging on Janus’ wrist.

Patton giggles excitedly and pushes Janus’ shoulders forward lightly. “Yes! Oh you’re going to love this Jan!”

Reluctantly, Janus lets the two drag him into the kitchen. “Sure, whatever, let's just get this over with.” He says. He will never tell them how this moved him, and definitely not how it made his chest feel warm inside… He has a reputation to keep after all.

#janus' birthday #happy birthday janus!#ts janus #patton sanders #remus sanders #fluff #soft janus #janus is softy but he tries to cover it up #fanfic #sanders sides #Lily writes

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ila9182 · 5 years

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23? :D

Thank you so much @allons-y–spaceman for sending me this ask and I am so so sorry it took me so long to write it. Life/work got in the way, but now here I am, working on all the prompt requests I’ve received! Be patient with me! ;)

So here’s the one you’ve asked for… This is set during Major Crimes, early season 4, when Sharon and Andy started dating “for real”…

I hope you will like it! ;)

23. “What’s cookin’ good lookin’?”

Sharon Raydor didn’t know what had gotten into her mind when she came up with that idea. She surely wasn’t thinking clearly when she turned down Andy’s offer for a romantic night out and instead offered him a nice dinner at her condo, a dinner she was supposed to cook. How she thought she would have been able to cook a full meal was a mystery. She was aware she wasn’t good at cooking; although, she was a master in the art of ordering out food, as Andy and Rusty often teased her.

However, here she was, in the kitchen of her condo, wearing her red apron as she stared blankly at the mess she had made. The sauce was slowly cooking. Sharon had already prepared the pot to boil water for the pasta and she turned to look at the eggplants she had cut into small cubes. Andy was about to arrive and she had nothing ready. She took a deep breath and turned on another burner as she grabbed a pan and put some oil in it. She waited for it to heat up and took the plate with the eggplant cubes. Without thinking twice, she put the vegetable in the pan, but the oil splattered, the small hot droplets hitting Sharon’s upper arms. She let out a small cry as she turned down the burner, stepping away from the pan as she rubbed her flushed arms. She was thankful for her apron, because she couldn’t think of what a living hell it would have been to get rid of oil stains from her priceless favorite blouse.

Sharon knew she should have gotten dressed after she finished cooking, but she didn’t think preparing pasta with eggplants would have been such a challenge. She obviously hadn’t considered the frying part of the recipe. She rolled her eyes as she took the printed recipe and read it for the umpteenth time. That was when she noticed the instruction of proceeding with care during the eggplants’ frying and carefully drying off the eggplant water to avoid oil splatter. She groaned and went back to the frying pan, this time paying more attention to the process. She fried the eggplants without major difficulties. She then set the cubes to drain on paper towels before adding them to the sauce and covering the pot with the lid. She checked the recipe again when she heard strange noises coming from the sauce pot. The burner was too high and the sauce had started boiling. She lowered the flame and took off the lid to check everything was good. Sauce droplets splashed over her and the kitchen.

“Damn it…” Sharon muttered between clenched teeth as she cleaned her face. She had just put the lid back on the pot when her doorbell rang. “Oh God…” she sighed.

Sharon quickly jogged to open the door and went hurriedly back to the kitchen to stir the sauce before Andy could greet her. He stepped inside and closed the door behind him as he walked to the kitchen. He smiled when he saw Sharon, her back to him, busy stirring what was inside the pot. He smirked when he noticed the unusual mess of her kitchen. He could tell she was a little overwhelmed with the cooking. Andy neared her and slid an arm around her waist while he rested his chin on her shoulder and whispered in her ear, “What’s cookin’ good lookin’?”

Sharon smirked as she leaned against him. She felt him nuzzle into her hair and breathe in her scent and she explained, “Trying to cook.”

“It smells good, Sharon.” He reassured her as he rubbed her arm with his free hand. A paper caught his attention and he took it. A smile crossed his features as he read, “Pasta alla Norma…” He put back the recipe on the counter when Sharon turned in his arm to finally face him. She shyly smiled at him as she explained, “I remembered when you told me of all those Sicilian dishes your mother used to cook, and how much you missed them…” She stopped as she realized how it sounded. “Oh God, this is stupid. I don’t even cook half as good as your mother, I don’t know what I was thinking, oh my…” She started rambling, a mortified look on her face as she covered her eyes with a hand.

“Hey Shar’…” He cut her short, putting both hands on her shoulders and looking at her in the eyes. “You have no idea how much I appreciate this. This is the most thoughtful thing someone has done for me in a long time…” He told her in a serious tone. Another smile crossed his features as he added, “This is perfect.”

“You don’t know that, Andy.” Sharon smirked, rolling her eyes. “You haven’t even tasted it yet.”

“My mother used to say that every dish made with love tastes good.” He told her reassuringly.

“Well your mother obviously didn’t know me and my…” She stopped as she realized how it sounded. She covered her mouth and closed her eyes as she mumbled, “Oh my God, Andy, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

“Hey… it’s okay.” He cut her short, running his hands up and down her arms in a comforting way. When Sharon slowly cracked her eyes open, she saw Andy smiling back at her. Before she could add anything, he told her softly, “And my mother would have adored you, no doubt about it.”

Sharon sheepishly answered with a smile before cupping his cheek with her hand. Andy stared at her sweetly when he suddenly let out a chuckle. She frowned as she threw him a questioning look. He gently stroked her left cheek before informing her; “You had some sauce on your face…”

Andy saw her blushing and she looked down, embarrassed as she muttered, “Oh gosh…” Her hand reached for her cheek as she rubbed it to be sure there was no more sauce. Andy watched her with a softened look before running a hand through her hair and putting a strand of hair behind her ear, “Ok, now you’re sauce-free.”

Her cheeks reddened even more and she ran a hand through her hair as well before whispering, “Even in my hair…” She paused as she looked down and added in a barely audible voice, “I’m sorry, I’m far from presentable tonight…”

Andy shook his head at the absurdity she had just said and he gently lifted her chin with his thumb. He didn’t say anything, and he didn’t need to. Sharon was a little taken aback by the emotions she read in his hazel eyes and she wondered when was the last time a man had looked at her that way. Too long ago, she thought, as she couldn’t recall an exact moment. She made a mental note to herself to just cherish the present moment. Andy leaned in and his lips met hers for a gentle kiss. Before he could break it off, Sharon slid an arm behind his neck and drew him back in, deepening the kiss. He held her close and when they finally parted, their lips still touching, Andy whispered, “Whoa, what was that for?”

Sharon smirked as she replied, “For making me feel beautiful even if tonight I’m standing in an apron with sauce and frying oil all over me.”

“Nonsense…” he immediately shot back, “You’re always breathtaking, Sharon.”

Oh God, it had been definitely too long since she last heard such words. Sharon felt a lump forming in her throat and she cursed herself for getting so emotional she wasn’t even able to speak. She stood on her toes and wrapped her arms around him again as she kissed him. The sudden strong boiling sound made them cut the kiss shorter than what Sharon had intended it to be. She let go of him when a burnt smell reached her nostrils. She turned to face the stove again, a panicked look on her face, as she reached for the lid on the sauce pot. Her face fell when she saw the contents, the stiffened sauce and burnt eggplants cubes.

“Hey Shar’, let me help.” Andy offered but he stopped when he glanced inside the pot. “Oh.”

Sharon shut down the burner and put the lid back as her shoulders fell and she sighed. Andy could read the disappointment on her face and he gently stroked her arm as he whispered to her, “Hey, it’s okay. You have no idea how many times I’ve burned food.” He told her jokingly. Sharon didn’t react, the angles of her lips still curved downward and he added, hoping it would cheer her up, “And by the way, this is all my fault. I’ve distracted you.”

Sharon hesitantly met his gaze and when she read nothing else than affection in his eyes, she mumbled with a shy smile, “I’m sorry, I wanted this dinner to be special and…”

Andy shook his head as he interrupted her, “I don’t care where we are, what we do, or what we eat… I just want to spend time with you, Sharon. Nothing else matters to me…”

Sharon didn’t know when Andrew Flynn, the irreverent and hotheaded Lieutenant who used to drive her crazy during her FID days, had turned into such a caring, sweet, and generous man. She smiled and this time it reached her eyes as she jokingly said, “Well, guess we’ll have to order dinner, Lieutenant.” She paused as something came to her mind, “At least we have cannoli in the fridge. I bought them before heading home, so you can eat them safely.”

#Major Crimes #Sharon Raydor #Andy Flynn #Sharon x Andy #Shandy #dating #cooking #what's cookin' good lookin'?#prompt #fanfiction #ilariawrites

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spookyspaghettisundae · 5 years

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A Beautiful Day in this Neighborhood

Karma rang the doorbell.

She fidgeted while she waited, wondering why people always knocked in the TV shows when there was a perfectly functioning doorbell outside most modern homes.

Her neighbor seemed to be a nice enough guy. Even if he was a bit odd. What was there to be nervous about?

A full minute dragged on like molasses and felt like an eternity outside the warm confines of her apartment. Karma hugged herself to close her jacket more. She had not bothered to zip it up because her neighbor lived in the apartment immediately next door. And now the nightly chill of early autumn was already getting to her.

Finally, the sound of unlocking clicked and clacked. The apartment door opened slowly. Gently.

Her neighbor’s face lit up, and he gave her a bright smile when he recognized Karma. She gave him a shy smile and raised her hand for a tiny wave.

An unlit crumpled cigarette hung from the corner of his mouth. His smile appeared genuine and felt out of place with the rest of his looks—dark rings of sleepless nights lining his eyes, hair dyed pink and cropped short, black-painted fingernails, torn jeans, unlaced combat boots, and topless—his whole look screamed something emo or punk or goth and did not match his age, either. Guy must have been in his late thirties. His somewhat androgynous figure and symmetrical face did look oddly familiar to her. Maybe he was in a band? Or had a YouTube show?

“Hi,” she said at a mousy volume. “Uhm, I need to borrow some salt?” She hated it when she caught herself posing things like a question when they should have been a simple statement. It stemmed from insecurity, and that was truly the reason why people walked all over her.

He just stared at her with a dumbfounded expression.

“It’s a bit late and, uh, the store is, you know,” she said, trailing off and flashing a nervous lopsided smile.

“Salt, huh. Sure, oh. Uh, yeah,” he said, muffling his own voice with half his lips sealed to keep the cigarette in its place. He looked over his shoulder to some dark corner that she could not see and gave her a big smile when their eyes met again. “Name’s Kevin by the way, don’t think I’ve introduced myself yet, yeah?”

She smiled and nodded. Only several beats later did she realize from his fading smile that she missed the opportunity to introduce herself.

“So, you’re in luck. I happen to have a shitload of salt. How much do you need?”

Karma hugged herself a bit tighter to pull her jacket more snugly to her body and shrugged.

“A cup? I guess? Really anything you could spare, though.”

Kevin nodded slowly, then nodded again with more vigor to it. He returned a timid smile and raised his hand, extending an index finger.

“One minute.”

He shut the door but the mechanism did not quite engage—with a soft click, it opened again and remained ever so slightly ajar. Just enough to fit some fingers through. Or spy inside. She bit her lip and told herself not to gawk. But then again, it was cold out, and he had not invited her in. Then again, they barely knew each other, and it might have been weird. Then again, maybe Kevin was hiding something.

Squelching wet sounds made way to something reminiscent of sandpaper being rubbed over wood. Then came a soft squeaking sound, much like a rubber ducky being squeezed or someone cleaning a smooth surface.

He was definitely hiding something.

She rocked back and forth on her feet and then pretended to casually lean forward, stopping mid motion to peer inside.

Twilit shapes barely illuminated from the adjacent kitchen and rooms comprised the apartment’s dark interior just beyond the entrance. Nothing out of the ordinary except for a strange arrangement of candles on a coffee table.

Karma did a double-take. It was difficult to tell by looking just through the crack in the door and the weak lighting, but she would have bet money on those candles being dark blue or black and set up in a circle. And in their midst was some sort of bronze bowl, surrounded by innocuous objects like rubber bands, a messy pile of keys, and what must have been erasers broken off of pencils. Random objects, but arranged with system.

He is into the occult, she thought. Imagery of her own research into the subject flooded her mind. Pentagrams, horned pagan gods, ritual fires, blood sacrifices, sex rites, magick. But the strange assortment of objects threw her off. Not associated with any kind of tradition she knew to be real, working magick.

Something in the bowl moved. Something small. Or lots of something tiny. A handful of writhing worms maybe?

Shuffling pants, the combat boots clomping across the floor—noise heralded her neighbor’s return in advance, and she sprang back into a position where it looked less like she had been spying. Karma pretended to be looking over the railing out onto the parking lot in between the apartment buildings.

He returned and swung the door open. In his hand he held a coffee mug. The cup’s side featured a bright yellow smiley face with a gunshot wound on its forehead and the word “HATE” printed in pink letters underneath it. Some salt spilled out of the top of the mug and onto his ratty carpet as he stopped the door from swinging open any farther. Her eyes wandered, only now registering what a pigsty his place was.

He gave her a smile again and handed her the cup.

She almost managed to hide her spying. Almost. The problem being that her big round eyes were too expressive, and the bowl in the circle of candles drew her attention again. Karma realized it after the fact and bit her lip again.

Kevin’s smile faded from his eyes while his lips could not keep up the guise alone, leaving a cold grimace in its wake.

He knew.

And that made her freeze. Knowing well that the longer this dragged on, the more likely he might figure out something about her that she did not want him to, she wanted to quickly retreat to her own apartment. Uncertainty paralyzed her.

Pulling a zippo lighter from his pants pocket, he flipped it open and guided the tiny flame to his face. He lit up the cigarette and took a long drag. Blowing out smoke into her general direction caused her to emit a muted cough from the unpleasant smell and fumes. He seized the opportunity and asked, “So, what’s cookin’?”

“What?”

He leaned against the door in a pose both languid and almost lascivious. Her eyes darted away from the nipples on his bare chest to catch another glimpse of the bronze bowl behind him—definitely worms, as one of them spilled out now and wriggled on the table in between the rubber bands. He caught her staring and asked, “The salt. What’re you having for dinner?”

While she hesitated and struggled to come up with appropriate words, he pulled the door shut by a few inches, breaking her line of sight to the strange setup.

“Mac and cheese,” she finally replied with a nervous smile. She had no idea what to cook that evening, but why not? Except that she now worried that the answer had been too simple, too stupid. She would never need that much salt for that.

Kevin whistled in the fashion that people do when they express surprise. He took a drag from his cigarette and cocked his head back to blow the smoke out upwards.

“Cool,” he said with a nicotine-laden rasp. “So,” he added, letting the sound trail off with a tail of impatience or the intent of bridging conversation fragments over a sea of awkward silence.

“Yeah,” she said and cleared her throat. Then she forced a smile that convinced nobody. “Thank you. I’ll be on my way then. It’s really cold, right?”

“Uhuh,” he replied with a nod. He produced a phone from his other pants pocket and thumbed through the display while staring into her eyes. Karma found something about his gaze magnetic, though also scary.

“Toodles,” he said. He gave her a flippant wave with the cigarette in his other hand and continued to stare while raising the phone to his ear and only slowly closing the door. Then the door shut completely, emitting an orchestra of three locks clicking into place.

Once more, Karma hugged herself and looked over her shoulder while she left with quick and frightened steps. Kevin peered out of his living room window, watching her leave through crooked blinds. The glow of the phone display by his head and the cigarette in his mouth cast spooky little lights in the darkened room, creeping her out even more.

The next time she looked back, his blinds had straightened out and folded closed. She hastily entered her own apartment.

Once she had shut the door behind her, she used Kevin’s mug to pour salt out along the crack at the bottom of the front door and proceeded to distribute more lines of salt across every single windowsill throughout her home. Once she had finished, she retreated to her “study.”

She had painted the door to this room pitch-black and covered it in ancient Sumerian glyphs. Karma whispered the words of power and opened the door to step inside.

She now grew paranoid: how thin were these walls? Could this Kevin fellow hear her chants and mystical utterings? Her first impression just now had painted him as some hack, but what if he was also a practitioner of some arcane art? One that worked?

Something like a whisper out of nowhere beckoned her. A reminder of the power she had been toying with for the past year.

The warm, soft glow of candles welcomed her. The tiny flames flickered in a gust of air that escaped through the door and stopped the moment she closed it. A deathly cold filled this room, no matter what she tried to do to heat it. Like a cool air just sprang out of nowhere in the windowless walk-in closet and kept it close to freezing temperature.

It somehow fit—she had used her witchcraft here to hex people for bad luck. None of the really dark stuff that she could have been working out of her ancestor’s book of shadows, though her nemesis Helen losing her hair and some teeth was a bit nastier than she had predicted. And Helen had only been the beginning, for Karma had exacted her revenge on four people already. Nobody knew. How would they? Nobody believed in magick. Nobody could prove it.

Nevertheless, Karma knew. She suspected dark forces at work when she worked spells. It was no wonder if the shrine in her closet had grown supernaturally cold. Who knew what malevolent spirits lingered there.

Bad juju.

She used the remainder of the salt to lay another line by the door to her shrine. Superstitions of that practice being effective at keeping ghosts and demons at bay were common in lore, but she had started to put stock in superstitions for the off chance of them containing a grain of truth. The whispers she was hearing had been increasing in frequency in the past days.

Karma sat down in the circle of candles and folded her hands on her lap. The young woman meditated, preparing mentally for the next step in her ritual. To make the next person pay for what they had done to her. Something kept distracting her though—the presence of that blasted mug. She opened her eyes and glared at the now empty cup Kevin had given her. The smiley face with the gunshot wound in its head grinned stupidly at her, and the pink letters spelling “hate” started feeling like a threat.

Or part of a bizarre spell.

She jumped to her feet and carried the mug back out of the room, swearing under her breath about forgetting to utter the magick words of warding while passing through the door. Just when she placed the mug on the kitchen counter, she froze when something in the front window caught her attention.

The faint glow of someone taking a drag from a cigarette, peering inside through the blinds. The dark silhouette of someone standing outside.

Her blood froze, and her heart skipped a few beats. She quickly turned off the kitchen light and hid behind a cupboard while holding her breath and staring at the front window. The cigarette-smoking person had already vanished—had he really ever been there or was her paranoia playing tricks on her mind?

Karma waited for several more minutes and listened intently. The kitchen faucet dripped irregularly. The air heater in her bedroom buzzed softly.

The door to her study creaked.

She lunged forward and snatched a knife from a kitchen drawer, leaving it open. She snuck through the dark apartment, creeping ever closer to the black door. Just like she had expected from the sound, it stood ajar. Like it had never fully closed—like Kevin’s front door earlier—or like someone else had opened it.

Trembling all over, she reached out until her fingertips connected to the cold surface of the doorknob. She gave it a gentle pull and gripped the knife in both hands while the door slowly swung open.

Cool air washed over her skin and made her shiver. The candlelight flickered once more. Nobody else was there.

Something shattered. Karma spun around, holding the knife out in front of her. She gave every corner a wide berth as she rounded them on her way back to the kitchen. She bumped into the drawer she had left open and muttered curses under her breath. Then she found the culprit.

Kevin’s mug had fallen off the counter and shattered, spread out in a hundred pieces scattered across the white tiles on the floor. Her paranoia had turned into full blown terror. She swore again and started searching the apartment, prepared to scream and stab and run for her life.

But there was nobody there. She went through every room, ripped open every closet, switched each light on and off, and looked behind and under every piece of furniture in her home.

She locked herself inside her bedroom. Karma left the knife on the nightstand next to her bed and wrapped herself inside her blankets.

Sleep refused to come. She expected an intruder anytime, anywhere. Someone hammering at her door. That weirdo neighbor busting in and doing something. She considered calling the cops, but what would she tell them? If they came in, how would she explain the study? They would think she was a freak.

She was, but that was beside the point.

Even when fatigue began to overtake her overactive mind and she started to doze off, sounds pulled her back into a waking state, reactivating her brain and sending it into a spiral of dreading the unknown. First, she managed to explain the sounds away, thinking of familiar nuisances like the dripping faucet. Then she started to hear the whispers again.

Unlike any words she knew. Barely audible. Whenever she strained to make out what she heard, it sounded so distant and surreal that she wondered if she was really hearing anything or being plagued by an overactive imagination. To the point where she doubted her own sanity. Maybe it was time to see a shrink.

But what if this was payback for the magick she had wielded? What if her neighbor practiced real magick and was hexing her as well? She had thought he seemed nice when he moved in a week ago, but now that she lied in bed, tormented by doubt and fear, she looked back. He had seemed too nice. And the way strange people of all walks of life seemed to visit him at dark hours within just a few days of moving in had made her think he might be a weed dealer, but now she wondered.

Unable to sleep, she slipped into her purple bunny rabbit slippers and emerged from her bedroom, still clutching the kitchen knife. She traversed her apartment and halfway to the shrine in her closet, she felt an awful sting in her foot. The pain shot up from there, and she resisted the urge to make a sound, instead hissing in agony over it. When she lifted her foot, she saw a chunk of the broken mug sticking out of the sole of her slipper and a dark spot spreading through the fabric, soaking it with blood.

She inhaled sharply as she pulled the ceramic shard out and swore out loud at how it hurt even more than stepping on it in the first place. She placed it on a nearby bureau and sat down. She hobbled into the bathroom, dug through a small first aid kit from behind the mirror, and sat down on the closed toilet to bandage up her injury.

Some minutes later, the blood had soaked through bandage and slipper, though she did not notice. Bloody footprints that grew in size with each limping step she took on her way back to the shrine. She did not forget the words of power this time, but the door stayed shut when she twisted the doorknob. Locked, or stuck.

She shook at the door, trying to yank it open with brute force, but it refused to open.

Her heart dropped into her stomach when she heard Kevin’s voice behind her, asking, “You thought you would get away with that cobbled together old-world crap?” It dawned on her that she had forgotten the knife in the bathroom when she bandaged up her foot.

“How’d you get in here? I’m going to call the cops,” she said, her voice trembling almost as much as her body. The threat was empty. Her phone sat on the nightstand in her bedroom. Too far away.

Karma turned around to face Kevin. He stood in her kitchen, casually leaning against the counter with his arms crossed in front of him. Though dressed like before, he had slipped into a felt jacket that revealed he was still topless underneath. In the darkness, his silhouette stood out by the remainder of light spilling in through the front window in the living room behind him, his face completely bathed in shadows.

“You forgot to lock your front door. And go ahead, call the cops. I want to see them try to do anything. I’m sure they have some sort of specialist to stop a curse.”

She was right. She had been all along. The fear rolled down into her belly region, knotted there. It swilled around, balled up into anger. Karma slammed the bottom of her fist against the black door to her shrine, causing it to quake in its hinges.

“What have you done?”

Kevin replied, “If you’re more than a second-rate dabbler, you should figure it out soon enough.” He then shrugged and added, “Besides, I can’t really take full credit for it. You’re the one who was toying with twisted spirits, not me. All I did was help them, uh—vent—a lil’ bit.”

Karma thought of all the horrible things that had happened to the people she had hexed thus far. Fury and fear mixed in her brain, awash with imagining how much worse it might be if it was her being targeted by a spell.

Then the whispers started again, sneaking up on her. Causing her to shoot paranoid glances behind her, next to her, all around. The only other person present that she could perceive was the dark silhouette of her neighbor standing in the apartment. Sounds of scratching, like a small kitten pawing at a door, came from inside the study, from behind that black door, sending shivers down Karma’s spine.

“Why? Why are you doing this to me?”

He stood and motioned to leave, stopping just at the end of the kitchen counter and answering with a question of his own, “Really? You really need to ask?”

When Karma posed another question, it escaped her mouth with such volume that it came out halfway between a croaking sound and a scream, “What have I done to you?”

He buried his hands in his jacket pockets and crammed around in them, looking for something.

“Ain’t done nothing to me, sister. And given my read of you—if I tell you who hired me, I’ll just be sentencing you to death.”

The scratching from inside the study became louder. What could have been a kitten now sounded like a large dog. A menacing baritone growl accompanied it.

“It was Helen, right? I’ll pay you more than whatever she paid you,” she pleaded. Her voice swung back and forth between rage and dread, fueled by waves and bursts of desperation.

“Maybe,” he said, pulling a cigarette out of his jacket pocket and sticking it into the corner of his mouth as he looked back. “But she’s not exactly paying me in money, and I don’t think you can beat what she’s giving me—”

Karma stormed off to the bathroom to retrieve the knife. She winced from the pain shooting up from her injured foot as she put full weight onto it on the way, but the fury coursing through her drove her to ignore it. When she reached out for the knife, she knocked it into the sink and cut her fingers on the blade in the second attempt to grab it.

She swore out loud and clutched it in her other hand, returning to Kevin. Drops of blood dripped to the floor while she balled her bleeding hand into a fist on the way.

He had backed up towards the entrance and already opened the front door behind him. His voice came out muffled again, once more because of a cigarette in the corner of his mouth, “Shouldn’t bring a knife to an occult fight.”

Before she could charge at him and lunge at him with the knife, he kicked the line of salt on the doorstep, disrupting the line and sending the tiny minerals flying in every direction. For a moment, the world slowed down, and the dim glow from the streetlights outside in the parking lot made the tiny cloud of dispersing salt look like stardust.

Karma could still not see his face, but she could feel the smugness oozing from him as he uttered a simple word. “Oops.”

A freezing gust of cold air blew inside past Kevin, causing his jacket and hair to flutter. The whispers turned louder, reminiscent of chanting. They had something vengeful about them—something sinister. But the fear subsided, the wrath took over, and Karma heard the alien-sounding words, not understanding their meaning, but interpreting them as calling her to action. The scratching stopped, and a sound of a lock clicking resounded from the black door. Karma knew what to do. This guy would pay.

They would all pay. The hexes she had used? Helen had gotten off easy for stealing her career. They had all gotten off easy. They would suffer. This punk rat from next door would pay, too.

She threw the knife at him, and he ducked outside although she missed by a long shot. The knife stuck out of the doorframe.

Kevin scrambled and stumbled past her front window. But there would be no escape. Karma turned to the black door and clutched the doorknob with her bloodied hand, unaware of the symbolic tension therein. What all the drops of blood and bloody footprints soiling her apartment carpets meant. The lifeblood smeared onto the cold metal as she began to twist.

Wind carried Kevin’s voice from outside into the room, the distance and wall in between rendering it feeble and frightened in tone, “Uh, I wouldn’t do that if I were—”

She twisted the doorknob all around and the black door swung open, as if it had been pushed by a tremendous force. Snowflakes and chilling air exploded out of the closet-shrine and hurled Karma against the wall behind her. The line of salt had been blown away and the candles went out, but only a split-second after her glimpsing something small sitting in the circle where she had meditated and worked all those spells to curse people.

The very place where she had summoned those spirits, or demons, or whatever they had been, and forced them to do her bidding.

It was blurry, and indiscernible. Small as a housecat but with too many limbs, covered in tiny mouths lined with what looked like sets of human teeth that had glistened in the candlelight. Chomping and snapping. And angry. Bloodthirsty. Like it had devoured all her fury and left only the terror that paralyzed her now.

She tried to kick the door shut but whimpered as she struck it with the bottom of her injured foot. It was too late, anyway. The thing had already scampered out of the room, and she felt tiny hands on her leg. She imagined it making its way up to gnaw through her ribcage and devour her heart.

Instead, what happened, happened so fast that she could not even emit a single scream. The creature latched onto her head and ate its way through her skull. She even heard the disgusting smacking sounds and gnashing little teeth and breaking bone until she lost consciousness. It slurped up her brain and crawled into that slimy cozy space to take control over her body and start a new life in an alien world.

And nobody would know except for a certain neighbor.

—Submitted by Wratts

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writerleo86 · 3 years

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Armor Champions Super R - Episode 141 (Do Not Copy)

During one quiet night, the children of Arial City laid comfortably in their beds and had beautiful dreams. While every child was asleep in their homes, a melody began playing from outside the city. This was a lovely song from a long white flute.

The flute was played by a young man that had green hair with the back shaven and the front spiked up. He had on a blue outfit with pink polka dots everywhere and dark-pink shoes that were quite long. He also had green brows that laid on the top of his green eyes. And he had fair skin.

The man marched through the city as the sound of the flute made its way to the ears of the sleeping children. Each child slowly climbed out of their bed and walked out of their home. And they all began following the man while they were in a hypnotic state.

The man continued playing his instrument as the children followed him to a large playground. And the children all chanted cheerfully "Polgoleszhunta! Polgoleszhunta! Polgoleszhunta!"

Then they followed the man into a large craft that stood by the empty playground. The man sat on the long spar of the ship as the children remained at the cargo section. The ship soon lifted into the air as its helm turned on its own. And the ship had made its way into the clouds.

Meanwhile, a figure stood behind the top of a large clock tower. It was a teenaged girl with fair skin and an angelic face. She had a slender body along with clear blue eyes. She also had long yellow hair with orange highlights. And she had a light-blue band worn around her head. She had on black eyeliner and peach lipstick. She had on a tight black suit with a small blue gem on the top of the chest area. She wore short black boots. And she had on a sleeveless black coat that lowered to her ankles.

She watched as the ship floated from the city as the girl gave out a worried look.

Armor Champions Super R -- Episode 141: The Dark Balloon Gang Arc -- Small Children Full of Sweet Dreams

A week later, the young group of champions as civilians remained at the old mansion in Violet City. Each of them were keeping busy in the large kitchen. Both Joey and Kody were cooking a large turkey while Aaron sliced different types of fruit. Desoto was in charge in making different types of gravy. Jede along with his girlfriend Relena had cooked pots of vegetables such as yellow corn and green beans.

Jede wore a red shirt with long pink sleeves, tight white jeans and brown shoes. And he had his long dark hair out.

Relena had on black eyeliner and pink lipstick. And she had her long blond hair out as well. She wore a long pink dress with no sleeves and a pair of brown slippers.

Kody had on a light-blue shirt with long sleeves, brown pants and brown slip-on shoes. And he had on a sleeveless orange vest that was worn open.

Joey had worn a pale-green shirt with short brown sleeves, tight black jeans and brown shoes. He also had on a sleeveless dark-green vest with a picture of an arrowhead placed on the back.

Desoto wore a black shirt with long white sleeves, tight pale-blue jeans, and tan Cowboy-boots. And his black band was around his head.

Aaron had on a gray shirt with long sleeves, dark-blue jeans and black boots.

After everything was finished, the friends met at the large table at the dining room. And they were joined by another who carried a long flat pan of chocolate-chip brownies.

It was the younger boy, Casey Lowe. He had brown eyes and fair skin. His brown hair was short and wavy. And he was quite slender. He wore a gray shirt with short white sleeves, khaki shorts, white socks, and gray shoes.

He placed the pan at the center of the table. And Casey watched as the older youths each took a brownie.

Desoto took one large bite of the small cookie and yelled "Damn, kid! You always make da best brownies!"

"I agree with Desoto on this," Aaron told Casey. "You should think about going to Culinary School."

"Are they that good?" asked Casey.

"These brownies are the best I've tasted," Relena informed him. "They are better than those I get from the mall."

"I think so too," said Joey.

Jede took a bite of his treat and asked Casey "When were you going to tell us that you have yet another talent?"

"Well," Casey responded. "My mom taught me how. I've been baking since I was probably five."

"Yer mum makes brownies too?" Desoto replied. "Wow! She must be da cook in da house!"

"Both my parents are really," Casey implied. "My step-dad is the one who normally makes dinner. But Mom likes to make dessert."

"Then this talent runs in the family of Lowe," Jede phrased.

As she took another brownie from the pan, Relena looked around.

"I wonder where Billy is," She replied. "He should be in on this too. Maybe he can convince our little Casey here to look into cooking school in the future."

"You're being too nice Relena," said Casey.

And Jede answered "Billy has gone for more supplies at downtown. He should return in a while or so."

"Ya sure, Kaballa?" questioned Desoto.

"Certainly," Jede informed him. "Billy had told me of this before he hurried off actually."

Desoto ate another brownie as he cried "I can't believe this! Billy's off at da store instead of helpin' us wit' da cookin'!"

"Billy is helping in a way," Joey implied. "Just think about it, Desoto. He is making sure we have everything we need so we can make more food for Christmas Day."

"And I never known Billy to be a person of culinary arts," added Kody. "Perhaps this is the only way that Billy can assist."

Relena ate another piece of her brownie and told Kody "Actually, Billy isn't bad at making cuisines like Lasagna."

"Dat boy can cook too?" yelled Desoto.

"Now that I think of it," added Jede. "Billy had me try different types of sushi that he made."

"You too?" Relena cried. "Billy gave me some sushi for my lunch a few days ago. And my favorite kind -- Crab."

"Well damn!" Desoto responded. "Maybe I can get Billy-Boy to make me somethin' one day."

"I'm sure he would if you asked," Joey told his cousin.

Then Casey gave out a soft smile as he thought to himself "I... I didn't know Big Brother can make food like that. He's so cool."

"To be fair," Aaron told Desoto. "I didn't know Billy had a culinary eye either. Maybe he could give you a lesson on making the perfect gravy. Well, brown gravy at least."

"Go ta Hell, Rich-boy!" yelled Desoto.

Joey gave out a sigh and said "And here comes Round One between Aaron and Desoto. This is the last thing I needed in the morning."

"I haven't even had my coffee yet," cried Relena. "I am going to be pissed during this match."

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phoenixryzing · 7 years

Text

Homeslice

Freshuary Day Nine: Who do you ship Fresh with?

Well that one’s easy- @alainaprana!

“Daaaaddy! Daadddyy Fresh!” a little voice called. A cute human in a rainbow shirt, hat, and blue jeans looked up when she heard it. The girl- Alaina- got up from her sewing to see what was wrong. She soon saw a little skeleton in a blue-and-red striped shirt and blue jeans running around the house, calling for his papa. Alaina was concerned at what was troubling her son- Zigzag- but before she could walk over to him, Fresh popped in.

He was dressed in his usual neon outfit- pink shirt, crayola-styled blue-and-purple jacket, and neon sports shorts. Like the rest of them, he had a pair of glasess, but unlike the others they were actually over his eyes.

Fresh quickly walked over to Zig, kneeling down to be at eye-level with him. “Hey broseph, what’s got you in a widdly-wobbly mess, huh?” His voice was soft, despite the cheery words, and Zig just started sniffling when he heard it.

“S-some of the kids at the park... they were.... “ Zig started, but trailed off.

“Hey little bro, you can tell me. What did they say?”

“They said... that.... I couldn’t be Mom’s kid... cause I was a skeleton... and...” Zig trailed off again, not looking at Fresh anymore, but studying the orange-and-purple carpet. Alaina just watched the scene, wanting to comfort zig but deciding to let Fresh continue to handle it.

Fresh sighed, and placed his hands of Ziggy’s shoulders. “Brah. Listen to me. Folks... they can get some wacked ideas, cause they just don’t know better, you know? They just a bit ignorant. You can’t let those sick ideas bug you. You know they’re not true, right?” He said, his tone changing to be more serious. “You’re my radtastic little son, and sweetheart’s fluffy little boy.” Zig and Alaina blushed a little at that, but Zig then drooped his head some more.

“But... I’m not like you... either of you....” he said quietly.

“Brah, I’m not like anyone. Nor are you. Or Alaina, or Jojo. We’re all different- all got our own special little things, you dig? ‘Sides, that isn’t what makes a family connected.”

“It’s not?” Zig asked, honestly curious. “...Families are supposed to be alike, aren’t they?”

“Dude if all families were alike it’d be pretty boringly monochrome, and that’s totes unfresh. Listen,” he said, gently guiding Zig’s gaze back to him. “What makes us a family ain’t our similarities or differences. It’s our connection, little brah. We’re all here for eahc other, you dig? If you need help, I’m here for ya. If Sweetheart needs help, we’d be there for her, you know? And if jojo gets hurt, you’re always right there, defending her like the rad big bro you are.” Zig nodded slowly, but he didn’t look fully convinced. Fresh continued.

“That’s what makes us a family brah. Not our looks or what creature we are. We’re always there for each other, defending and helping the other, you know? That bond... that love for the other.... that’s what makes us a family. And no matter what no sick unrad kid says, that won’t change. We’ll stay together, and be the raddest family eva. Okay?”

Zigzag slowly nodded, and wiped his eyes. “Ya... ya. We’re always together. One big rad family.” Zig smiled, and started to turn back to his normal hyper self. “Okay then. Thanks daddy Fresh! You’re the coolest dad ‘round,” and with that, he collapsed on Fresh in a huge hug. Fresh just smiled and hugged back.

“Anytime broseph,” he said, rubbing Zig’s head a little. Zig halfheartedly whined, then pushed himself up.

“Imma go play with sis, okay?” Zig said, starting to run off.

“Kay brah, have fun!” Fresh called after the rapidly-dissappearing Zig. Then he looked over at Alaina. “Hey there sweetheart. Been listenin’?”

Alaina walked out of the hallway and over to Fresh. “I heard Zig yelling and went to check on him. Seems you had it all under control,” she said, smiling.

Fresh smiled back, then pulled her into a hug. He loved hugs, and Alaina never objected. “Little man just needed some reassurance, ya know? No biggie.”

Alaina looked up a bit and nodded. “Zig’s a strong kid, and we’ll always be here. No sense dwelling on it.”

“Nah, none at all.” Fresh replied. After a minute of hugging, he reluctantly pulled back. “Okay sweetheart, whatcha working on today?”

“Plushies- stocking up for the con next month. You?”

“Nothin’ really. ‘s playing with jojo earlier, but ziggies doin’ that now. Want some help?”

“Hmm...” Alaina said, thinking. “Could you cut out some of the fabric? Then I could focus on sewing.”

“Sure thing sweetheart,” Fresh said, before heading towards the craft room.

Alaina and Fresh worked on the plushies for an hour or so, before shouts could be heard from the bedroom. Alaina got up to see what was up.

She peeked in the room, and saw Zig and Jojo immersed in a Mario Kart match. They kept the Wii in there for safety’s sake, but the kid’s were pretty careful with it. Right now they laughing and cheering as they finished a race, loud but happy. Alaina told them to quiet down a bit, but seeing them happy made her smile.

The rest of the afternoon, she worked on her various crafts, and Fresh went to working on his comics. Every now and again one of them would get up to check on the kids, or to see what the other was doing. Whenever Fresh went over, he rested his skull on Alaina’s head, making sure not to distract her but still letting her know he was there. They’d occasionally tease each other, in a playful way, but for the most part they concentrated on their work, content to simply be in the room together.

Eventually Fresh left to take care of the kids and do some work on his own. He and the kids made a game of tidying up the house a bit, and Alaina could hear the quiet shouts as they all tried to be “the best sickest raddest cleaners eva”. She had to smile, but mostly she just concentrated on her art, lost in her own little world.

As it got dark, Fresh waltzed back into the craft room, and hugged a very-zoned-out Alaina from behind. He planted a kiss on her startled head, and whispered, “Hey sweetie, it’s getting a bit late. How ‘bout we make somethin’ together? Or would ya rather I grab some food?”

Alaina leaned her head back into him, and looked up and replied, “Making something sounds fun. How about stir-fry? And something sweet for dessert?”

“You’re all the sweetness I need,” Fresh said, kissing her again. Alaina giggled, then Fresh said, “Anything’s good for me sweetie, whichever you like.”

“Stir-fry then,” Alaina said. They stayed hugging for a minute, before Alaina wiggled out of it and stood up. They walked to the kitchen and started prepping.

Fresh couldn’t taste, but he could prep food really well. He sliced and diced the veggies while Alaina prepped ingredients for cookies, then they swapped and Alaina fried the vegetables while Fresh finished the cookies and set them in the oven. He set the timer for the cookies, and Alaina called to the kids, “Dinner’s almost done!”

Jojo and Zig had been playing some imaginary game, but they broke up and bounded over. They quickly got the table set for dinner, and sat down, waiting eagerly. Fresh and Alaina dished out the food, and sat down themselves. After a moment, they all plowed in.

“Yummy! This is really good!” Zig said.

“Tasty food!” Jojo chimed in.

The parents just smiled and Alaina said, “We make a good team cooking is all.”

“Teach us?” Jojo asked. “Ya, it looks like fun!” Zig added.

Fresh chuckled and said, “Maybe sometime homeslices. ‘Long as everyones careful, kay? Cookin’s fun but ya gotta watch yourself.”

“We know,” the kids said simultaniously, then started chuckling.

The conversation drifted after that- what everyone did, a funny story someone remembered, a new hobby they had discovered. Everyone smiled and laughed, so much they took forever finishing their food. Fresh got up halfway through and pulled the cookies out of the oven, setting them on a rack to cool.

After dinner, everyone pitched in with cleaning up- the parents packing up the food and starting the dishes, while the kids put everything away. Then came the fun part.

They had made icing earlier, and now pulled out the icing and sprinkles. With a firm reminder to not make too big a mess, everyone got started on decorating the cookies.

Everyone had a particular style. Fresh drowned his cookies in sprinkles- “sprinkles are little rainbow pieces, and the more the radder”-, Zigzag made little patterns on his- “Stripes are so cool!”-, JoJo made hers as colorful as possible- “Look at all the pretty colors!”-, and Alaina did little abstract designs in hers- “It’s a sunflower with a pink scarf, see?”

Everyone laughed and oohed and aahed over the other’s designs, occasionally saying how they looked too good to eat. They got some icing on themselves, but nothing a quick clean-up couldn’t fix.

After the finished, they just sat back and admired all the colorful cookies. Zig eventually said, “This is what families about, huh? Just hanging out, having fun, and being together.”

“You got it broseph,” Fresh said, smiling. “This is the best yo.”

Eventually they had to get up and clean everything up again, and by then the kids were yawning (and trying to hide it). The parents ushered them to their rooms, the kids halfheartedly protesting. They tucked the kids in, then quietly crept away.

“They’re good kids,” Alaina said quietly, watching them through a crack in the door.

“Well ‘f course they are, they’re ours,” Fresh replied. “’Sides. The amazing one’s you,” he said, pulling Alaina back into another hug.

Alaina hummed a little, and said, “You’re amazing too, hubby. We’e pretty lucky,” she said.

Fresh nodded, and said, “Totally. Now come on- it’s time to go to sleep.” He took Alaina’s hand, and they walked back to their room. One rad day had ended, and there would be many more to come.

Fresh by @loverofpiggies

Freshuary by @feth

(Kid!)Zigzag, Jojo, and herself by @alainaprana

#freshurary #well CQ did marry them #@alainaprana #fluff #freshfloof #zigzag #kid!zigzag #specifically #I forget if freshfloof fresh is supposed to be a parasite #but he is here #title is a pun of slice of (home) life #long post #sorry... ish... not completely #Alaina I hope I got everyone right-ish #fresh #story post

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sweetie-skullz-blog · 7 years

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HAPPY ONE YEAR OF ILLUSION ASSIGNMENT~

It's been one year of Illusion Assignment. We may not have much of a following, but we’ve been having fun working on IA.

Sadly, Diancy’s sketch files haven't been retrieved from their old laptop yet, so you get to see it another time.

Thankfully, we got this back-up plan: The characters and when they were kids. Little snippets of their childhood. These memories vary from age to age.

Gambling King/Nigel Hillingham (7)

I watched as Devin and Nathaniel ran around. Devin was busy chasing Nathaniel with a toy rat, while I just laid underneath an oak tree with a book in my lap.

Now this book wasn't something that other kids read. I didn't really like those fairy tales as I was more interested in these murder stories, more specifically around casinos.

“Ni-ni! Help me!” Nathaniel shouted as he ran right towards me and right up the tree.

“You’re fine.” I replied going, back to my book.

We may be considered monsters, but we still have a right to have a childhood. Doctor Vienna and Doctor Talin are doing their best from what I understand. I’ll take them over my actual parents any other day.

C-Sharp/Nathaniel Keen (7)

“Amazing Natty.”

“Really Uncle James?” I asked, beaming up at my uncle as he fixed my fingers position on the guitar. He was happy to teach me music and my little five-year-old mind loved making noise.

“Of course Nathan!” Uncle Lee piped up from the wall, “Absolutely beautiful. Maybe better than James.”

“He has a long way to go before he’s in my ranks.” Uncle James defended.

I chuckled and looked up at him, “I’ll be the best when I’m older.”

Uncle James smiled at me softly, “Then you got a lot of practice to do kiddo. Oh right! I have some extra backstage passes to Dezio Angelo show. Want to join me?”

I instantly tackled him and laughed alongside Uncle Lee as we both shouted yes.

Arachne/Kenta Norm (8)

Daddy lifted me up and spun me around as the song continued to play. Ma used to play this song all the time..

“Cévon! What's cookin’ brother?” Miguel greeted as he waltzed into the room, “I thought I was gonn’ be the little lady’s dance partner.”

“Uncle Miguel!” I quickly hopped out of my dad’s arms and ran to Miguel, “Are you coming too?”

“Of course sweetpea. He always come with. Should we get goin’?” Daddy asked.

Miguel lifted me up and chuckled, “Let's go visit your ma!”

It wasn't too far and smiled as I knelt down. I took off the ribbon around my finger and wrapped it around some flowers that my daddy handed me.

"Hi ma..." I whispered, setting the flowers before the tombstone, "I have a lot to tell you.

Masque/Luis (9)

I watched as Elodia placed the mask over my eyes.

“You look like a superhero!” Julio said as I looked over towards him and the others.

“I don't feel like one…” I sighed.

“Aw, don't say that Lulu!” Kamryn beamed, “You look like a one of my dads showguys! The fancy ones that are really formal, but super nice.”

“Really?”

“Yeah! What Kam said!”

I spun around to see ****** smiling right at me.

“Are you sure?” I asked again, this time sounding a bit better.

****** just flashed me a smile as Kenta came up, “Come on Lu, you look really cool!”

I made my way to the mirror in Kamyrn’s room to look at myself in the mirror to see myself. The mask didn’t go with my clothes, but if I was at a costume party, I would be sure to wear this mask.

Visage/Cyril Theil (11)

“Pretty…”

I looked away from my art to see a girl, a little smaller than me and maybe younger.

“It’s sad.” I replied dimly.

“Winter is sad, but pretty. Storms are bad, but pretty. Death is sad, but can be pretty if she wants to.”

I watched the girl for a bit before looking back at my art. Maybe she was right.

“I guess so…”

“Why are you alone?” She asked.

“I don't know.”

“Why do you wear a mask?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you have any friends?”

“No.”

“Liar! You have me!” The girl grinned, she was missing a tooth, “I’m Elodia Akinci Callejo Wolfgang.” She held her hand out.

Slowly I took it, “I’m Cyril… Um… Wanna paint with me?”

“Sure.”

Angel’s Shadow/Elodia Akinci Callejo Wolfgang (9)

I can hear shuffling from behind me as Damario knelt down on my bed and sighed. In the reflection of my window, I could see that Damario had a sheepish smile as he looked over my shoulder.

“Come on, baby sis… Are you really mad at me?”

“Hmph.” I turned my head away from his.

Damario just sighed before I could feel him get a bit more comfortable.

“Alright… Guess I’ll go ahead and leave you alone with the-”

“Dama…” I interrupted, warning him. I may be nine, but I’m not stupid and being an illusioner is much worse.

“What? Did you think that I was gonna say the tickle monster?” He mused, but pouted when I gave no response “Fine.” He got up and I heard the door shut.

Slowly, I turned around, only to get tackled into my pillows as hands started to wiggle against my sides.

“Da-Dam-” I couldn't even finish his name as laughter took over.

“Laughing Taffy is here!” Damario shouted with glee as he continued to tickle me.

Devil’s Light & Dagger/Devin and Luca Dalton Batts (8)

The two watched as their sister walked out with their dad. They weren't very happy.

“Definition of a daddy's girl!” Their grandfather growled, “Honestly.”

“Dad stop.” Their mum sighed, “Just go drink your brandy and leave mum and I to fix this. Devin, Luca, come here.”

The two walked to their Mum.

“This is going to be tough, but we’ll power through.” Mum started, “I love you both dearly and I forgive your father, but that doesn’t mean what he did is good. I want both of you to grow up with the sweetest of minds and hearts towards others no matter how different.” She knelt down and hugged us.

We hugged back.

Selkie/Kamryn Dakota (10)

I danced around the room as my father followed around with the camera. He was always so happy to record me, to have these memories of me as illusioners, especially kids, never get a chance at a good childhood.

“Kammy! Give your old man a little spin in that new costume!” Father flashed me a smile.

I ran over to in front of him and spun in my marching band out that I made myself with Elodia’s help.

“Think that I can help out in the show?” I asked.

Father chuckled and nodded, “Of course! The Deaf Jewel is catering for the food and Firefly Bites is catering the desserts. All such good friends.”

“I get to see some of my best friends! Yay!” I started to dance around, screaming happily.

Bullet/Atlas Holloway (8)

I watched as my grandma continued to sew beautiful designs on my jacket. It was nice to watch her, she always knew what to do.

“Will you teach me that one day grandma?” I asked.

Grandma looked over and smiled, “I thought that sewing was for girls?”

“That’s what Mister Ackley says… But, I don’t believe him!”

My grandma smiled and nodded thoughtfully, “Good. Learning stuff like this is a good thing for anyone. Come here.”

I walked over and sat next to her when she handed me some fabric and sewing needle that was already threaded, “What do I do?”

My grandma placed hers down and scooted over a little bit before reaching over. She started to lead my hands to start a simple stitch, “Alright sweetheart.First let’s teach you the basics…”

Venin/Julio Bezerral (9)

I watched as Elodia handed me another cookie.

“Try this one!”

I took a bite and savoured the flavor of bitter berries and caramel. Elodia has been experiemnting and I always loved her cookies.

“Good!”

Elodia nodded, pleased with my answer, “Happy birthday!” She reached over to hug me then pulled away afterwards, “Cookie taste-testing is better than any gift combined. Right?”

I smiled and nodded. I was spending the night at Elodia’s after the party and was happy that she was a good friend.

It was fun. Since all of my friends were there and Elodia’s dad loved me as if I was their own child and she treated me like a brother.

“Hey you two! Get to to the living room. Time for bed.” Damario called out as he walked into the closed bakery.

Pyro/Ashton Burns (10)

I cried as the doctor rubbed some bad smelling cream on my shoulder. It hurt, a lot.

“It’s alright sweetie. You’ll be fine.” He says as he called a nurse over, “Can you get the poor girl something sweet and some water?”

The nurse nodded and walked off as the doctor gently rubbed my back, “All done sweetheart. Care to tell me why your parents did this?”

I remained silent.

“Alright… Well social services will be here soon and will be assigning you to someone on Veskia.”

I looked up and saw the mirror across from me. Long red hair and just towels wrapped around my chest and legs. A large burn mark settling on my shoulder... I never wanted my long hair and I never wanted any of this this. I need to change.

Sunshine/Joshua Wenkert (10)

I watched as Drayson tapped on the tarantula's tank.

“Please don’t do that. My uncle won’t let you hang over her again.”

Drayson turned and pouted, but stopped nonetheless. He walked over to where I was and turned on the tv, “Can we watch cartoons?”

I shook my head no, “Not allowed to.”

“Movies?”

“Documentaries.”

“Anything fun?”

I frowned at that description, but sighed, “We can watch something from the geographic channel. You like volcanos.”

Drayson smiled and changed the channel as he reached over to grab his juice, “Why won’t your uncle let you do anything and why does he make you take those stupid pills?”

I shook my head no. I wasn’t so happy with the pills, but he still took care of me.

Lady/****** ******** (9)

I laughed as Elodia and Kamryn continued to put Bean in silly outfits. Bean just took it all, not a care in the world.

“Won’t Dama be mad?” I asked.

“Nah. He’ll take photos and laugh with us.” Elodia answered before hugging Bean, “Bean loves me more anyways.”

I nodded and walked over to pet Bean. It was nice to be around friends when everything is happening so fast. I knew what I wanted to do instead of being a famous actress.

“I want to help everyone.” I suddenly stated, “We should all help everyone! Become great groups among the bad things!”

Elodia and Kamryn watched me for a bit before grins started to grow on their faces, “Yeah!”

#Illusion Assignment #One year of IA #snippets #iaextraupdate

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