#random animals walking around the ship deck now

[missskzbiased]

Watermelon Sugar

Genre: Fluff, Romance, Oneshot, Drabble, Summer crush! au

Pairing: Hwang Hyunjin x Fem! Reader

Word Count: ~2,9K

Notes: The last fanfic for the Valentine’s request [That you can find here]

If you never saw a schooner, please look for “escuna” in google images, so you can picture it! <3

Warnings: Make out?

Chan ||  Minho || Changbin || Hyunjin || Han || Felix || Seungmin || Jeongin

Masterlist

Requested: No, that was the beginning of the request idea xD 

General Tag List: @channiewoo @aliceu @bythesunnotbythemoon

[If you wish to be tagged to the other Valentine’s requests, please send me an ask <3]

                                                 ////

   You gasped, marveled by the bay right in front of your eyes.

    You were sure your eyes were shining like twinkling little stars or something, and as much as you really wanted to look like the cool and elegant tourist, you couldn’t help but let your mouth fall agape and look around. The sun cast its light above the sea, allowing pretty sparks on the teal waters to get your attention from time to time, distracting you from the beautiful forest that surrounded you. The view was breathtaking and the way that the forest-green mountains stood up there like a giant barrier ─ kind enough to let an entrance for adventurers such as you ─ made your heart swell inside your chest.

    “Want me to take a picture for you, Sweetheart?” Not even the cool breeze that came straight from the sea was enough to cool down your face at the moment. You pursed your lips, coyly rubbing your arm as you glanced at his bright smile. He looked at you with lovely gentle eyes, waiting for a reaction as he extended his hand in your direction (not to hold yours but to ask for your phone), and the lack of response made him tilt his head in confusion “Y/N?” He called carefully.

    “Oh! Yeah! Yeah, I mean- Why not?” You snapped away from your thoughts “It’s such a beautiful view” You added, more composed now, handing him your phone. You didn’t miss the small smile on his lips as he nodded in agreement with you, positioning the phone to take a picture as he muttered something under his breath, a blush spreading on his face “What did you just say?” You frowned, bothered by the pose you choose.

    “I said you look perfect” He repeated mindlessly “No! I mean-“ He widened his eyes, snapping them at you as he realized what he had just said “You look good in the picture! Not that you don’t look good in real life… I mean-“ He floundered, making you burst into a fit of giggles “Here is your phone…” He sighed embarrassed, fingers brushing on yours as he handed it to you. That was the most romantic thing that happened to you on Valentine’s Day in your whole life. And he wasn’t even your boyfriend!

    The truth was that you barely knew him at all.

    The attractive stranger was called Hyunjin ─ a simple and pretty name, just like him ─ and apart from being a good photographer, as you could see by the pictures he took from you, he was also part of the crew. Of course, you knew that the kindness and cuteness that he had been showing you was nothing but strictly professional behavior to allure the tourists, and (obviously) you couldn’t help but swallow it hook, line, and sinker. In your defense, he probably worked like this for years and had mastered the perfect gentlemanliness that he was using against you!

    When you decided to take your single Valentine’s trip and get rid of all those insane expectations people had on you for being single for too long ─ really, what was the deal with them?! Didn’t they have anything better to worry about?! ─, you didn’t imagine that you would come across someone like him. You wouldn’t even believe you would have the courage to get your feet on a boat like this! But you promised yourself that as a self-discovery trip, you had to be bold and jump right into any new opportunities.

    You meant more like a one night stand or something like this.

    But navigating through a deep ocean with a cute guy sounded good too!

    The moment you spot him on your way to the beach ─ perfect smile, tanned skin, and wet hair sticking to his forehead and cheeks ─, you knew you were screwed. You tried to reason that you weren’t really a good swimmer and hoping in a boat like this wasn’t the best of the ideas even if he had offered you a really good price. Of course, he knew exactly what to say and promised you to be right by your side at all moments… What a flirty little bastard you found as a summer crush.

   “I’ll even fight the waters for you!” He had joked as you signed the paper “I’ll be right there to catch you if you fall, though I can assure you it’s very safe! The only thing that you might fall for is me” You laughed along with him, but he was indeed right.

    Was there a way to not fall for Hwang Hyunjin?

    The very first thing he did was to stick to his promises as you stared at the wobbly boat warily ─ clearly rethinking all of your life choices ─, wondering how the hell you would get inside it if the bloody thing kept swinging like that. Were you supposed to simply jump inside it? What if you just fell to the sea?! That would be the silliest way to die on a trip… Utterly humiliating. How would your family and friends take the news?

   DUMB GIRL DROPS DEAD WHILE TRYING TO GET ON A BOAT!

   You could even see the disappointment on everyone’s face.

    “Here, gimme your hand!” His voice had brought you back from your daydreaming.

    The crew was holding the ropes firmly to bring the schooner as closely as possible to the deck, making sure it was safe to get into the boat. Of course, Hyunjin had to drop it and hop inside the schooner as if it was nothing, wiping away his sweat with his forearm and extending his hand to you with a bright smile that made you flustered. You accepted his offer, yelping at his firm grip and the way he could make almost everything seem steady as you connected your eyes to his, stepping inside the rocking ship successfully.

    You averted your eyes from him ─ the shyness overcoming your willingness to keep looking at his orbs ─, and the magic suddenly ran off as the boat shook in a different rhythm (or maybe it was all the same and you were just being clumsy), prompting you to pathetically stumble over nothing. If it was a movie, that would be the moment you would crash onto his chest and be wrapped into strong arms as you looked into each other’s eyes and exchanged a flustered smile under his friends’ teasing… Of course, you weren’t in a movie, so you just had the humiliating experience of pretending it didn’t happen as you walked straight away from them.

    Being the prince charming wasn’t enough for Hyunjin.

    He was also a fierce environmental defender just like you.

    Your heart would melt for him, just like those damn glaciers.

    It happened almost one hour ago but you could still remember vividly how mad you felt as a random guy tossed an empty chip bag to the sea, completely ignoring the crew on how important the area was for the local fauna. The damn guy literally tossed a plastic bag to some animal choke to death for no reason. You would have said something or done something but before you could even react, Hyunjin jumped out of the boat, diving into the sea and swimming like a torpedo.

    The thrash must stay in the thrash! He sneered, shoving the bag into the man’s hands with a scowl as soon as he got back. It was needless o say that it surprised you, yet you felt the admiration growing in your chest. As we were saying… This is not only our home but also of those animals and we’re responsible to keep everything clean and safe for them and for us… We thank you for your collaboration.

    Could someone be more perfect?

    “We have some fruits for you to eat” Hyunjin said, snapping you away from your thoughts “Do you like watermelon?” He asked, offering a triangular piece for you to take. You gave him a small smile, nodding as you took it from his hands.

    “Oh! It’s really sweet!” You arched your brows in surprise “This is really good!” You hummed, eyes sparkling as you took another bite.

    “I may have chosen the sweeter one for my favorite traveler” He chuckled, sitting by your side as he ate his own piece “We’re almost arriving at the last stop… I highly recommend you to get into the water this time” He advised, glancing at you “I can help you out if you need to” He offered.

    “Unless you carry me in your back, there is no way I’ll survive inside the sea with no ground under my feet” You laughed “The other places I could go to the beach… What will I do in the middle of this bay?” You asked playfully.

    “It will be fun! This is the best spot to go! You could go to any other beach” He reasoned “Also, I can wait for you down there to support you in the water! There is no problem” He smiled at you.

    Why be so damn cute?

    “If you let me die, my family will sue you!” He laughed wholeheartedly at that, nodding.

    “Your family can rest peacefully today, you’ll be safe in my arms!” He chuckled, getting up “I have to help the guys out and prepare things for you guys to get in the water… As soon as I can go in, I’ll call you, okay?” You nodded, fighting back a smile as he walked away.

     He did just as promised.

    As soon as everything was settled down, Hyunjin took your hand in his, guiding you to the ladders. He jumped into the water ─ kinda showing off a little bit ─ waving at you from the water with a huge smile on his face. You took a deep breath, slowly going down the ladder. The closer you got to the deep water, the more you wondered what you were doing with your life.

    “That’s okay, I’m right here to catch you” He reassured you, sensing your hesitation. You peeked at him over your shoulder, seeing how he had his arms extended to hold you as soon as you got into the water.

    “We’ll die” You cried though you kept going down.

    “We’ll be just fine” He chuckled “Trust me, okay?”

    As soon as you got into the water, still attached to the ladder as if it could save your whole life, his arms wrapped you up. You yelped as he tugged you off of your safe place, bringing you some feet away from the boat.

   “For everything sacred in this world, please let me go back” You hissed, back pressed against his chest and eyes focused on the schooner, wondering why you tried to get into the water in the first place.

   “Hey, calm down” He soothed you, squeezing you in a hug and resting his chin on your shoulder “Breathe in” He instructed you, and you complied “Breathe out” He continued, and you did it again.

   “Yeah… Yeah, I think that worked” You sighed, a little bit more relieved, “Maybe I could even be alo—“ You interrupted yourself to scream, turning around desperately to wrap his waist with your legs, squirming as you hold him for dear life “Something touched me!” You yelled, trying to check the water to see what had just bickered you.

   He didn’t answer you at first.

   You glanced at him, noticing the compromising position you put both of us in. He looked down to avoid your chest on his eye level, ears burning in embarrassment as he held you by your sides delicately, unsure of how he should act. You felt your face burning when you noticed how your hands tugged on his hair, body pressed impossibly closer to him.

    “Oh my God, I’m so sorry” You mumbled, loosening your hold.

    “It must have been some fish” He muttered, still refusing to look at you.

    “Yeah…” You nodded “You guys said that there are tons of fishes here, right?” You asked awkwardly, and he nodded to confirm it “Cool…” You cleared your throat.

    He lifted his head, looking into your eyes as he adjusted his hold to your body, eyes wavering as he tried to focus his gaze on you. The moment was a little bit too intimate. You noticed how your legs were still around his waist, bodies pressed against each other, and breaths mingling, warming up your face. You let your eyes wander to his lips before returning your gaze to meet his.

    The moment made your stomach flutter.

    “Am I… Am I imagining things or…” He cleared his throat “I’m sorry but are you… Can I…” He floundered with his words, too flustered to say whatever he wanted to say.

    “Kiss me?” You questioned, and he snapped his eyes to yours again.

    “I mean… I shouldn’t have suggested it at all!” He said startled “I’m so sorry, this is so unprofessional! I didn’t mean to—“ You snorted, cupping his cheeks to make him stop talking.

    “I want to” You reassured him, staring at his lips “Can I?” You asked unsurely, checking for any signs of hesitancy in his eyes.

    “Please” He chuckled, sliding one hand to cup your face as the other one kept supporting your waist.

    He didn’t need to tell you twice.

    You slammed your lips against his, hands sliding to entangle his neck and play with his hair as you kissed each other. He hummed, hand going to the back of your head to keep you as close as possible to him. The kiss tasted like watermelon ─ sweet and kinda wet and sloppy ─, and you almost couldn’t remember you were in the middle of the sea, on Valentine’s day, kissing a complete stranger.

    A charming and sweet stranger, to be fair.

   He rested his forehead on yours as soon as the kiss came to an end, breathing heavily and closing his eyes to enjoy the moment for a while. You smirked; twirling his locks on your finger and making him shiver for a second. He opened his eyes, staring at you in complete bliss.

   “Wow” He muttered.

   “I agree” you chuckled, kissing his cheek before trailing the path to his jaw “Maybe we should repeat it sometime” You suggested, feeling how he tensed as you whispered against his skin.

  “You mean like now?” He giggled “Because I’m more than up to it��

  “I meant more like a date after the ride ends?” You said unsurely, shyly checking for his reaction.

   “I’m more than up to it as well” He smiled, brushing his nose on yours “Not that we need to do only one of those things…” He said suggestively making you chuckle “I kinda want to take advantage of how sweet your lips taste right now… If you’re up to it” He cleared his throat.

   “I’m more than up to it” You grinned, pecking his lips.

#skz fanfic #skz scenarios #skz imagines #skz x reader #stray kids fanfic #stray kids scenarios #stray kids imagines #stray kids x reader #hwang hyunjin fanfic #hwang hyunjin x reader #hwang hyunjin scenarios #hwang hyunjin imagines #hwang hyunjin fluff #skz fluff #stray kids fluff #hyunjin fluff #hyunjin fanfic #hyunjin x reader #hyunjin imagines #hyunjin scenarios

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

HASO, “Can We Keep It.”

Sorry about the extended break. Hope you guys like this :)

First officer the Omen Lieutenant Simon waited at the entrance to the cargo bay watching the flaring red light blink continually before the airlock doors. A tone came with it loud and blaring repeatedly crawling its way into her head and making the space behind her eyes throb. She rubbed her head desperate or the sound to stop by knowing she just needed to wait  it out. Her family had always wondered why she chose a job that was so stressful, and so full of annoying and bothersome noises, but she wanted this and was willing to go through all manner of annoyances to make that dream come true.

If annoying noises were the worst thing about her job, then she should feel lucky.

The airlock door hissed open and the group of GA scientists and their accompanying human escort hurried into the cargo bay before the door shut behind them. 

She saluted to the Admiral who hurried onto the deck, “Sir, everything went well I trust.”

Her question was suddenly cut off when she noticed…. Something off.

Simon had never been all that great at reading people, she had trouble distinguishing tonal variation in people’s voices, and sometimes body language flew itself right over her head like a UFO, but this was obvious enough even SHE was able to pick it out.

“Did you gain weight?” She immediately chided herself for being so blunt. She had learned pretty early on that people didn’t like that sort of bluntness, but she had already stepped face first into it.

Admiral vir straightened himself out and quite obviously pulled his coat over his stomach, which was bulging quite obviously, “Bloating is a bitch, I tell you those space berries are really something.” 

“You are EATING random space plants!”

HE shuffled his feet, “Well not eating thm per say, anyway gas, you know that sort of thing. SHould probably head back to my quarters before I bother anyone with my issues.”

He went to walk past her and as he did, she thought he saw his coat twitch right above his stomach.

“What the Fuck was that.”

“Spasms, nothing to worry about.”

“Nothing to worry about! Admiral I should call Dr. Krill down right away.”

“NO NO! No need for that, I can walk just fine. Look, I will swing by the infirmary in a minute and get myself checked out, feeling totally fine. Nothing to see here.”

Simon went to open her mouth but he hurried past her and away, “Lord look at the time, so busy have so many things to do, paperwork, and and meetings and, and gotta call my mom before she freaks out and assumes I have died. Yep.”

Apparently she wasn’t the only one who thought he was acting weird, and she watched him go as the rest of the crew did the same, their heads cocked to the side, their mouths pulled down into a frown. NO one was really sure what was going on, and no one was really sure what they were supposed to do about it.

Simon turned her head to look over at the scientists who looked just as confused, although their leader looked somewhat annoyed about something.

He looked up at her wit an expression even SHE could tell was one of annoyance.

“Next time, we will not be allowing him on our expedition.”

She frowned, “Why is that?”

“Touching everything with his bare hands, marching through the bushes disturbing he wildlife, touching strange creatures, honestly he has no sense of scientific decorum, and if that planet had been even the slightest bit more dangerous, we might all be dead.”

“I will, have a talk with him.”

“Do what you must.” The little creature said, “I need to go lay down.”

He and his scientists walked off, some to the labs and others to do as their boss was doing. Simon was left standing rather confused and staring after them as they went.

She shook her head.

Sometimes she wondered how the Admiral had ever even become an Admiral, but she guessed clearly someone had thought he was qualified.

***

Adam Vir hurried down the hall desperately trying to keep unnoticed until finally shouldering open the door to his room and allowing it to hiss shut behind him. Then finally he leaned his back against the door and sat there as something writhed and churned against his skin. He felt it slither up the front of his chest before Jeffery snaked his way from the top of his jacket and out into open air. He opened his three segmented mouth, likely tasting the air kind of like a snake as he did Before turning his head to look around at the dark room.

Adam patted Jeffrey on the hed, “See, home sweet home.”

The snake-like alien slithered most of the way out of his jacket and went to curl around his upper arm and torso resting his head on top of Adam’s as he showed the creature around the room.

“This is where I sleep, and that over there.” he pointed “Is my dog waffles.”

In the time they had stepped into the room, and Jeffreyhad shown himself, the German Shepherd and poked her nose out from around the side of the bed eying Jeffery with some measure of concern.

Jeffery opened his mouth in her direction and Waffles scooted back just slightly looking to Adam with an expression of confusion and concern. She clearly wasn’t sure that she liked this at all.

Jeffery stretched close to her, his mouth still open holding himself up with great powerful muscles, likely more powerful than your average snake, which was saying something considering earth had plenty of constrictor species that could crush a man to death if they sochos.

Adam held out an encouraging hand, “It’s ok girl, its ok, he isn’t going to hurt you.”

Granted, he hadn’t actually thought this through, and if it didn’t go well, i was going to make his life a lot more difficult than he had originally intended.

He Knelt down on the floor and held out a hand to Waffles, who, as the good girl she was gave him her trust and moved forward, her nose twitching in the direction of the strange alien. 

Waffles had spent a good portion of her life around aliens, so she was used to coming into contact with new and strange creatures. Where other dogs might have barked, growled, or even attacked, she approached with cautious footsteps her head cocked curiously to the side.

Jeffrey, for his part, didn’t seem worried at all, and stretched forward to get a better look at the strange creature he could now sense before him. He closed his mouth after a bit and looked her over with his large green and yellow eye. She stretched her neck forward sniffing at him curiously. Tentatively she took one step forward and then another until she was sniffing the head of the space snake directly.

Her tail came up from where it had been hidden in between her legs and slowly began to wag back and forth.

She took another step forward and tentatively licked at the snake.

Jeffery reared back slightly surprised causing the dog to shrink back a little. For a moment he worried it was going to devolve into a fight, but then Jeffery lowered himself back down and allowed Waffles to lick him some more. He slithered from around Adam’s soldiers an onto the floor in a tight coil.

Waffles dropped her front half and stuck her butt in the air tail wagging playfully batting at the snake with one of her paws.

Jeffery reared up a little an playfully lunged at her.

Adam grinned. It was a lot like watching a cat and a dog fight and he sat back on the edge of his bed to watch the two of them play.

Waffles Lay down with Jeffrey in between her paws, mouth open tilting her head back and forth as if threatening to bite him, though he knew she never would. She played with him like that all the time and had never hurt him in the past.

It Was probably at that precise moment that Adam realized…. He wasn’t entirely sure what he was going to do. It’s not like there were regulations against stealing animals from unknown planets, though there probably should have been. He knew that what he had done was probably illegal in some way or another, though he hadn’t read the manual in long enough to figure that out. He knew for sure that Simon and krill were going to be pissed, and probably Sunny. They would likely turn the ship around and make him take Jeffery back home, but the thought of dumping him off in the forest and then just leaving left a huge pit in Adam’s stomach. 

He had already proven once that he wasn’t going to be able to leave Jeffery behind.

After bonding for the day, he had honestly intended to set jeffery back into the wild. He had even gone down to the nearest berry tree and set him down offering him some of the berries to eat in his cupped hand before turning away and walking off, but then he heard jeffery behind him, and turned around to find the snake following him, looking for all the world like he was sad to see his friend go.

Adam had tried to explain himself as much to make himself feel better as to explain the situation to jeffery, but he just couldn’t do it. Jeffery had looked so forlorn and sad, like he understood what was going on.

Then he had crawled over and wrapped himself around Adam’s leg looking up at him with a big sad eye.

Adam was a weak man.

He knew it 

Puppy eyes, or in this case, snake eye worked on him just a little too well, and he was unable to leave the creature where it should.

At any time, if jeffery had shown a hint of agitation, he would totally have gone back, but he had curled up under Adam’s shirt and rested there through the whole flight like it was nothing, and now here he was taking his new environment and friends in stride.

Adam sighed and rested his head in his hands.

Great, he had gone and adopted yet another alien.

He hadn’t done it in so long that it was bound to happen again, but he really had not intended for it to happen this time. This time it had been completely by accident.

Just then there was a knock at the door.

He nearly fell off the bed in shock and concern as he hurried over to the door. Waffles and Jeffrey had stopped playing as they curiously looked over towards him. He cracked the door halfway glancing out into the hall with a face of concern.

Adam was both surprised and nervous to see Ramirez standing there.

Behind him Jeffery slithered over looking ready to poke his head around the door to see who was knocking.

Adam tried to block him with his foot as he peered through the door.

“Sorry bro, really busy right now gotta go.”

Ramirez frowned and reached out a hand to block the door, “Dude, serious? Like you were acting weird just a few minutes ago and Krill sent me up here  to make sure you were okay.”

Adam gave a stiff smile as he attempted very hard to keep Jeffery back from the door, “Oh yeah, I am totally ok. Very cool, completely and utterly ok, no problems at all.” Jeffery, who had got annoyed at his attempt to block the door, now began to slither up his leg.

Ramirez frowned, “Are you sure you are ok?”

“Yeah Fine/”

He tried to Grab Jeffery but he slithered through, and around the doorway opening his mouth to smell the newcomer.

Naturally Ramirez freaked out almost immediately, “What the FU_” He reached down for his handgun, but before he could Adam lunged forward, grabbed him by the front of his shirt and pulled them both back into his room allowing the door to slam behind him.

He pinned Ramirez to the floor  as the other man struggled, “What te HELL!”

He claimed a hand over the other Man’s mouth, “Shut Up! Shut UP.”

Ramirez went quiet breathing hard as Adam Sat over him, a hand pressed to his mouth. Jeffer peered out from around his shoulder.

“Don’t scream, and I will take my hand away. Gt that?”

Ramirez nodded, and Adam pulled his hand back.

“What the hell is that!” Ramirez hissed

“This is Jeffery.”

“Jeffery?”

“Yeah…. I may have…. Rescued him from an alien planet.”

“Dude are you kidding me, for a second I thought you were being mind controlled or possessed by some sort of alien brain sucker.” He looked up at Jeffrey and waved a hand, “Waddup.” 

Jeffery opened his mouth again.

Ramirez pulled back a bit, “W-what’s it doing.”

Adam waved a hand, “Oh, I think that is just the way he smells people or something.”

He rolled off to the ide to allow Ramirez to sit up,and reaching out jeffery let Ramirez pat him on the head, “So cool,” he glanced over at Adam, “You know Simon and krill are going to be PISSED.”

He sighed, “I know, I know, but you should have seen the way he looked at me when I tried to leave. I couldn’t handle it….. I am a weak man.”

Ramirez shook his head, “Well now what…. Do you even know what it eats”

Adam paused, opened his mouth and then closed it, “Well I know he eats berries?”

“And did you bring any of those berries?”

“Well I uh…. May have forgotten in the moment.”

Ramirez paused, “Wait here for a second.” Adam watched him as he got up and left the room.

***

The rest of the crew would be very confused to watch Ramirez walk into the mess hall, int the walk in refrigerator and then appropriate a tub of strawberries, some raspberries, blueberries and blackberries before walking back out of the room without saying anything to anyone. He would get some very strange looks as he walked up the stairs towards the captain’s quarters and then vanish walking back into the room and setting the berries down on the floor.

The two of them sat cross legged across from each other and attempted to figure out what exactly it was that Jeffrey liked.

Adam still had no idea how he was going to hide this.

Jeffery was too curious for his own good , and someone was bound to find out eventually

[hatterstan-shameblog]

Here is the first one

Second :D

And last..he's looking at you 👀💦

ALRIGHT you know WHAT—

There’s…a lot going on here. So much so, that I have decided to create

CONTEXT

for these three images that is

COMPLETELY FAKE

because I think it’ll be a fun writing exercise. kind of a cringe move on my part, but consider: i have fun making up ridiculous lies about characters who don’t exist in real life.

(which is how I’m treating these, by the way. yes, they are pictures of kaneko nobuaki, but for my purposes, they are NOT actually him. they are distinct fictional characters who are not real.)

so if you’re feeling adventurous skip below the cut and watch me break it down:

Image 1: Accidental “Date” Makes Cousin’s Wedding Less Terrible Than Originally Expected

The year is 1999. Your cousin (who you are not particularly close to) is getting married…on a cruise ship. Your mother insists you attend. You insist upon spending 90% of your time sipping margaritas on the deck and flipping through the latest issue of Marie Claire while trying desperately not to think about the fact that you are surrounded by nothing but open ocean.

One of the (very drunk) bridesmaids tries to toss you a beach ball because you have been, and I quote: like, a total bummer this whole time. She misses. It hits the person next to you in the face. Great. Awesome. You think: well now who’s being, like, a total bummer?

Luckily the person who got hit in the face laughs the entire thing off. He says your friends seem…’lively.’ You say that’s pretty rich coming from a guy who looks like a rejected member of ‘The Clash.’ He insists that he left them, not the other way around.

You slip into conversation. You tell him that you’re here for a wedding. He offers his condolences. You accept them. He says he actually likes weddings—something about two people making a life-changing commitment speaks to him on a soul-level. That and the open bar, of course.

You suggest he crash the wedding. He says he’s not sure if he can make it—there’s a shuffleboard tournament that evening that he would just hate to miss, plus the latest issue of Soap Opera Digest is waiting on his bedside table just begging to be opened. You say that’s perfectly understandable, but, if he suddenly finds himself caught up on the latest All My Children gossip, he can meet you back here at four.

Surprise, surprise: he shows up. He’s wearing the same shirt he was before, but buttoned up this time—and with one of the most hideous neckties you’ve ever seen, which he apparently borrowed from the kind old man next door. Instead of complimenting his attire (because it is truly un-compliment-able), you take the opportunity to mention that this is a Titanic-themed wedding. He says that having a Titanic-themed wedding on a cruise ship is “kind of fucked up” and you solemnly agree.

Everyone is very surprised and pleased to see that you’ve brought a date—even the bride, who tells you that you’re “just like Jack and Rose.” You agree, much to her delight…until you say that, if the ship goes down, you also won’t share the door and let him freeze to death in the icy water. He insists he’d be the guy who jumps off the ship and hits his leg on the propellor—that’s his favorite part of the whole movie, and it’d be an honor to re-enact the scene.

The wedding is…a wedding. Vows, toasts, pictures—and you’re sipping champagne through the entire thing. The two of you spend the evening getting completely wasted and telling everyone a different story about just who your ‘mystery date’ is. Highlights include: the captain’s unruly son whose been tasked with following in his father’s sea-faring footsteps; professional cave-diver who discovered a new species of slug and is spending his reward money on a nice vacation; head of marketing who gives all those clever names to the nail polishes at OPI; the guy who folds everyone’s towels into animal shapes.

You end up where you started: on neighboring lounge chairs, with a margarita, and talking to this stranger who has recently crossed into “acquaintance” territory. You chat about how “My Heart Will Go On” is actually a good song, and he promises not to tell anyone that you said that. He also says that this is the best Titanic-themed cruise ship wedding he’s ever been to, and he can’t wait until somebody decides to do Jaws.

Eventually, you both stagger back to your rooms with promises of seeing each other at breakfast. Unfortunately, you have the worst hangover of your life the next morning and even the thought of ‘breakfast’ makes you want to roll over and die, so you don’t manage to stumble out of bed until it’s time to disembark.

You see him at port, and you each offer each other a little wave before going your separate ways. Six weeks later, you get a Polaroid of the two of you together, sitting at the bar and laughing at something that must have been very, very hilarious.

You don’t remember most of what happened that night, but you remember it was not as terrible as it could have been.

🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸

Image 2: Extremely Weird Guy On The Street Has You Questioning Your Sanity

It’s 6:00 in the morning—a truly terrible time to be awake, but a necessary evil. Your flight leaves at 10, and since it’s an international thing, you want to make sure you get there in plenty of time to get to your gate (and maybe sample all the fancy perfumes you can’t afford at one of those high-end stores that are always in airports.)

The streets are mostly empty, save for a few random pedestrians and a handful of passed-out salarymen snoozing on the curb. The sky a rainy gray-blue as the sun tries to rise behind the springtime cloud cover—it’s no doubt going to be another dismal day, as is common during this time of year. Hopefully there’s not too much turbulence on your flight…

You stop at a crosswalk, waiting for the little walking man signal to show up on the light across the way. You’re soon joined by another person—a man in a soft-looking jacket who supplies you with a small “good morning” bob of his head. You respond in kind, throwing in a small smile for good measure. It’s nice that he too understands that it’s entirely too early to be having any kind of conversation, even if it is just a simple verbal greeting between strangers on a street corner.

The light changes, and you both begin your trek across the street. Your fellow walker is faster than you—or, more likely, has longer legs and, ergo, a longer stride than your own—and is nearly halfway across by the time you get your wheeled suitcase over the curb. He seems decent enough. You hope he’s going somewhere nice.

It’s then that you make the mistake of looking up. It would have been much better if you had just continued watching the white painted lines on the road and thinking about how it reminds you of piano keys—and how you hated the six months of piano lessons your parents forced you to take in the first grade.

But no. You noticed someone walking towards you, and you just had to look up.

The first thing you notice is a rainbow tie-dye shirt. The second thing you notice is that the rainbow tie-dye shirt is on a very cheerful looking gentleman, who seemed to be bobbing his head in time with a song only he could hear.

The third thing you notice—and this one’s the real kicker—is the large blue-and-green reptile sitting on his shoulder. It’s bulging eyes are hooded in pleasure as it’s red-pink tongue darts out to eat the green something—maybe a grape or a small piece of melon?—from the rainbow tie-dye man’s hand. It is nothing short of a spectacle, honestly, and you feel a piece of your sanity evaporate.

The rainbow tie-dye man continues on, uncaring of your confused stare at his strange pet. You even turn around to make sure that you weren’t somehow hallucinating, and sure enough, there is definitely some kind of creature draped over this stranger’s shoulder. It’s tail even sways in time with the man’s steps, which is both cute and confusing.

Because it would not do to stand in the middle of the street all day, considering the existence of rainbow tie-dye man and his exotic pet, you do the only thing you can do: turn back around and continue on your journey. You need a coffee. Maybe with an extra shot of espresso, after witnessing whatever the hell that was. Something to set you right again.

“Was that…?”

The other man—the soft-coat long-stride one—is speaking low enough as to not draw attention, but loud enough for you to hear as you make your way towards the sidewalk. His expression reads ‘concerned, but trying not to show it’ which you suppose is the polite and mature way of handling the situation.

“…an iguana? Yeah,” you answer him, “I saw it too.”

The man’s brow furrows. His mouth puckers into a small frown as he considers…well, something.

“…Okay, then,” he concludes, shrugging his shoulders, “Hell of a way to start the day.”

“Yeah.”

And you both continue on your way. He turns left at the next intersection, you turn right—but even though your paths may now be different, you will forever share an unbreakable bond over the fantastical sight you’ve witnessed today.

🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸

Image 3: Near Death Experience At Open Mic Night

You are not a poet.

Well, not professionally, anyways. You’ve been known to dabble in the written word, often scribbling little snippets of rhyme in a notebook over your lunch break or tapping a verse or two into the notes app on your phone. It a kind of outlet, you suppose—a way to keep the creative energy that bubbles inside of you from boiling over.

It’s also worth mentioning that you are not a confident public speaker. Not since that unfortunate incident in the third grade where you forgot the single line you had in the school play and ran off stage, tears streaming down your face and—actually, no, you’re not going to think about that right now. Or ever again, hopefully.

So when your (tipsy) coworkers decide that it’s a good idea to push you onto the stage at the local dive bar’s open mic night—while shouting at you to “read the one about the night-blooming jasmine”—you freeze up. There are at least seven strangers staring at you, expectation rising with every passing second of your inaction. It’s nerve-wracking in the way that the third-grade incident was not, and you gulp against the nervousness that rises in your throat.

Shaking hands scroll frantically through your phone, looking for the requested poem—and after a few agonizing moments, you manage to find it. Your voice cracks rather embarrassingly as you begin to read, trying your damndest to get the words out right so you can slink back to the bar and drown the rest of the night in Chardonnay.

Everything is going well—or, at least, as well as can be expected—until you notice that the room is suddenly feeling very hot. That’s the last coherent thought you have before the room goes dark and everything falls silent.

Next thing you know, you’re staring at the ceiling. A man who you do not know is leaning over you, and his mouth is moving—oh, he’s probably trying to say something to you, but it’s very difficult to tell what he’s saying over the throbbing pain in the back of your head.

You ask him if you’re dead. It’s a possibility after all, that you’ve somehow died and landed yourself in some kind of special public-speaking hell. That’s what this feels like, anyways.

The man says no, you are not dead. You say ‘dammit’ in response. He tries to hold back laughter, offering to help you up by extending his hand. You take it and—ouch, ugh, ew, going from laying to standing is not a fun experience.

You thank him (albeit awkwardly) for helping you up, and he insists that ‘it’s cool.’ Passing out in front of an audience is not even remotely cool, but you nod and thank him again, anyways.

Before you’re able to converse with the helpful stranger any further, your coworkers have come to collect you. You are whisked away by someone from accounting, who offers to escort you home—an offer you gladly accept, very excited to leave the site of your failure behind you.

Safe to say, you never go back to that particular bar again.

#writings and such #thought you’d get me with a thirst post WELL I JUST THREW DOWN AN UNO REVERSE CARD BAYBEEEEE #‘he’s looking at you’ YOU TRYNA MAKE ME BLUSH CUZ ITS WORKIN OKAY??? #fun fact: the second one was inspired by MULTIPLE real-life events #can’t wait to wake up tomorrow morning and regret this <3

[hyakki59]

Portgas D. Ace - One Shot

(Because of Quarantine I started writing fanfics, so if they are boring, I'm sorry, because I'm bored in the first place (^^") )

You entered your share room with Ace and you saw him standing in front of the desk like he was busy with something.

"What are you doing here?" You asked him

"Y/N, do you see that?"

He said pointing out a gem

"That's a really rare gem that you can't find easily. I was searching for it the last 3 years. I found it earlier in the city. Do you know how much money can we get from selling it?" He said with a grin.

"Really?" you asked.

"Yeah. But Y/N, be very careful with it it's really sensitive and it can break anytime."

He said while he was putting it carefully on a base.

"So please if that's possible, I don't want to sound rude, stay away from it".

You raised up your eyebrow when he said that

"What am I? A small child or something? You underestimating me"

"No, Y/N, I never said that, it just took me very long till I found this and it's really important"

"Hm! Okay"

You said still raising your eyebrow and you turned around continuing your way.

Later that day, you happened again to visit your room, you were alone and your eye fell on that unusual gem. It was colourful and if you were looking it from a different side it was sparking and changing colours. It was really awaking your curiosity. You approached it, looking it up close. You wanted to see it from it's all angles so you touched the gem's base, turned it a little, in order to observe it better. When you were about to take your hand away, you accidentally shooke it which cause the base to fell off and the gem to break into pieces. You frozen. You frozen so much and felt sweat appearing on your skin. What now? What will happen when Ace see the gem broken? Your question became reality, because Ace opens the door and the first thing he sees is your frozen pose

"What h-" he was about to say until he saw the broken gem and his jaw dropped.

"Ace- I-.. so..rry, didn't-"

Your voice was trembling while you took some steps away from the desk. His face started to darken and he put his hands to rub the sides of his face so he would realize what happened.

"Even though I told you to be careful with it.."

He said with a serious tone. You tried to take steps near the door to go outside. The idea of confronting his anger was really scary, so you thought that it was better to leave him alone, to calm himself. Until he said

"Only If catch you.."

You thought only of one thing. Run. You escaped quickly from the room and you started walking with a fast pace in the halls of the ship when you looked back to see Ace doing the same following you with a fast pace and you could hear his heavy steps, that his boots were making. Then you literally started running, going towards the few stairs that were leading to the door for the deck. The chasing had began. You almost tripped to the stairs because of your rush. When you got out you ran up the deck, fastly passing by your crewmates trying not to bump with them. Then seeing the wooden columns of the ship you decided to do zig zags through them, so Ace would lose sight of you, who was also running behind you with all his speed. You managed to hide behind some boxes, catching your breath. Thatch saw you and gave you a questioning look, and you told him with moving your lips but not really spoke out loud

"Don't tell Ace I'm here"

Clapping quietly your hands like you were begging. At that time Ace appeared and asked with heavy breathing and frowning face

"Where is she?"

Thatch had a worried face and gave you a quick glance and then looked at Ace and asked

"Who?"

Ace wasn't that dumb, he understood that you were hiding where Thatch quickly looked and with all his force went where you were hiding like a wild animal searching for his prey and you let out a small scream from the adrenaline when you looked at each other's eyes. You almost flied in order to escape. You started to run but he almost catched up so you stood behind some boxes and barrels, which were separating you from Ace.

"We can really discuss this"

You said moving right and left try to find an opening to escape

"Nah, I don't think so"

He said with an angry yet a sly tone on his voice, trying also not to allow you to leave, moving to the one side and to the other with his arms open.

"I'm into civilized solutions" you said

"Well, I'm not. Anymore"

He said observing you, his eyes moving quickly on you

"Can I say that I'm not seeing it?" you added

Then more crewmates appears nearby you two (they were working etc) which gave you the chance to run away without Ace catching you, because if he was about to run he would bump into someone. You started running again, Ace also managing to get out from the congestion and ran behind you. You passed by Marco almost bumbing him, which Ace did too. Marco very confused said

"What the heck? Is it already the reproduction season?"

You managed to enter the door from which you came before and you were only thinking of finding a spot to hide. You run inside the ship and entered to one of the doors, which was actually the door for the bathroom. Once you opened the door you close it quickly doing like bam because your back hit the door. You saw the window of the room and thought to climb on it, so you could go out and then climb up to the deck. You thought that in that way you could have more chances for Ace to lose sight of you. All this effort to run away sounds crazy, but on the same time it was giving you goosebumps on an exciting way.

Your thoughts stopped when you heard quick steps on the hall. You immediately climbed on the window, your body going through it and then your legs stepped on windows sill. Once your body stretched your arms grapped some mini columns which belonged to the upper part of the ship. You then managed to climb up to the deck. You thought of your next destination and that would be the crows nest. And thats where you went. You started to step the wooden stakes which were used as stairs till you reached up the top. You thought that it was a good hiding place so Ace couldn't find you for a while. You sit there on your butt so you weren't visible from below. The crows nest was all around closed, so in other words no one could see where you were.

You stayed there for some minutes and you started to relax. You didn't even understand that you overslept. But the time arrived when your eyes opened. You slowly opened your eyes, the sun was setting so the sky had a petrol hue. Your mouth was slightly open and and your mind was trying to remenber why you were there up to crows nest, what time was it, in other words you were trying to connect with your environment, lol.

Even though it was almost night you weren't cold, but you were feeling a warmth. You noticed an arm around your neck and felt a body beside you, which all of them belonged to Ace. You turned your face to see him, he was sitting beside you like you with his legs bented.

"Hello beauty"

He said with a serious yet teasing tone.

You looked at him voiceless and then he approached you more, saying slowly and quietly beside your ear

"Do you know how fucked are you?"

And that was true.

(This fanfic may be very random. Usually I have dreams that I am running away from something or generally running, and they are lets say adventurous. The point is that I like dreams like that because they are like real and i feel the adrenaline. That's why I choose a theme like that for the fanfic 🙃)

#portgas d. ace #portgas d ace fanfiction #portgas d ace x reader #ace x reader #onepiece fanfiction #onepiece one shot #portgas d ace one shot

[silenceofthecookies]

Midnight call

So, here’s my first submission for @nakunakunomi​‘s 750 follower event! This one is for one piece.  Prompt: You’re drunk and crying and panicked in the middle of the night and you call me awake  Random word: climb Pairing: Bartolomeo x gn reader Word count: 1270 Warnings: Barto being drunk

Most of the crew had gone ashore to party, but you didn’t feel up to joining them tonight night. It would be nice to have a bit of alone time on the ship without any idiots around. You loved them all dearly, but having more braincells on your own than all of them together, sometimes it was nice to be away from them.

Deciding to really enjoy the opportunity, you took a bath, pampered yourself a bit, and then relaxed with a book in your hammock. After reading a bit more, you dimmed the light and put the book away, ready to go to sleep for the night. You checked once more if you had your portable den den mushi with you. It was something Barto had insisted on getting after you had gotten together. Whenever the two of you would split up, be it for a battle, for grocery shopping, or for something like this, he’d insist you keep it on you at all times. He had one as well, so whenever there was trouble, you could call him. Or whenever he was in trouble and you had to get the ship ready to sail as soon as everyone was back on board.

Barto had no doubt in your combat abilities, but that didn’t stop him from being very protective over you. You were his partner after all, both in crime and in love, and he’d rather turn himself in to the marines than let anything happen to you. And even with your abilities, there were opponents out there that would be too much for you. For cases just like that, he wanted you to have a way to contact him. His barriers would always keep you safe.

You placed the little snail on the nightstand next to your hammock and blew out the candle that was on it. Pulling your blanket around you, adjusting your pillow and shifting around for a bit, you made yourself comfortable and let out a sigh. Going to sleep without the noise of the rest of the crew running and shouting on deck, or worse, the sound of any one of them snoring, was a blessing, and it didn’t take long for you to slip into dreamland.

The sound of the den den mushi startled you awake. Barto was in trouble. Nearly falling out of your hammock, you grabbed the den den mushi and started running up the stairs to the deck as you picked up.

“Barto? Do I need to get the ship ready to sail? Just how much trouble are you in?” “Y/N….” You could hear in his voice that he was panicked and crying, something very rare for Barto when he was in trouble. “Barto? Are you ok?! What happened?!” “I’m lost…”

You froze as you just arrived on deck. Lost? He called you in the middle of the night because he was lost? The little snail in your hand was crying dramatically, suggesting that Barto was doing the same. You took a deep breath and calmed yourself, nearly collapsing now the adrenaline was leaving you and you realized just how tired you were.

“Barto, just how much did you drink?” “…a lot?”

You sighed. Barto was not going to leave you alone until he either found the rest of the crew, or found his way back to you. Might as well get comfortable while talking the night away with your drunk boyfriend. Walking back to your room, you grabbed your pillow and blanket before heading back up to deck.

“Ok Barto, what do you see?” “Trees.” “There’s a lot of trees on the island, babe. See something else?” “Euhm… Oh! I see a river here!” “Great, follow that downstream… You couldn’t have gone too far from shore so it should lead you to the edge of the island.” “Ok! Please don’t hang up though!” “I won’t, Barto.”

You lied down on deck with your pillow and blanket, and made yourself comfortable. Looking up at the stars made the whole situation of your boyfriend calling you in a drunken panic a little better.

“Y/N!!” “What?” “I heard something!” “Well, what did it sound like?” “A wild animal!” “Don’t cry, babe. Just keep an eye out and use your devil fruit if needed.” “Devil fruit? Oh right! I ate a devil fruit!”

You smacked your head at his comment. There were emotional drunks, aggressive drunks,… and then there was your boyfriend. A dumbass emotional drunk. After reassuring about some more noises he heard, and after he got out of the forest and to the edge of the island, he seemed to calm down a bit. Luckily Barto hadn’t wandered off too far, and now he was out of the woods he could see the lights of the town where you had docked. As he walked towards it, he never stopped talking to you. The fresh ocean air and the walk seemed to sober him up a little though.

“Hey, Y/N.” “Yes?” “What are you doing?” “Lying on deck, watching the stars.” “Nice. Can I join you?” “Sure. You need to get here first though.” “I’m on my way! …and what were you doing before I called you?” “Sleeping.” “So… I woke you up?” “Yup.” “Are you mad?” “Not anymore. I was a little in the beginning because I thought you were in trouble and I got worried.” “…so am I in trouble when I get back?” “Nah.” “Phew! Good. I was a little scared you’d be mad.” “It’s fine. But don’t make a habit out of this, ok?” “I promise!” You smiled. With his reputation, you sometimes forgot just how cute Barto could be. “Hey, Y/N! I can see the ship!” “Almost here huh?” You yawned. “That’s good.” “Yeah! I’m getting a little dizzy though, I’m pretty tired too.” “Really? In that case I’m going to enjoy watching you climb that ladder up to the ship.” “Y/N! That’s mean!” “I’m sorry, Barto.” You laughed.

Not much later, you heard Barto’s voice from a distance without the den den mushi as well. Walking towards the railing of the ship, you hung up. You heard some yelling coming from Barto, something along the lines of ‘why would you hang up on me now?’, until he saw you standing on the ship. As he came close enough to be properly understandable, he looked up at you and continued talking.

“You know, seeing you up there, on the ship with all the stars and the mood behind you? It looks like a view straight from my dreams.” You blinked a few times and laughed. “When did you get so sappy, Barto? Oh right, alcohol.” “Hey! I mean it though. You look really pretty and I’m happy to see you.” “I know, babe. Come up here, it’s late and It’s pretty cold. I’m dying to get back to bed, and it seems you could use a nap too.” “Yeah…”

Barto climbed the ladder up to the ship and pulled you in for a hug as soon as you were within reach. You returned the embrace, but pulled back after a short time.

“Barto, please go wash yourself.” “Why?” “You stink of alcohol.” “Do I have to? I’m tired…” “Either you wash yourself or we’re not sleeping together.”

You watched his eyes go wide before running off into the ship, probably to wash himself. Laughing at his sudden action, you grabbed your blanket and pillow and returned to your room. Barto would be there soon enough, all washed up and ready to fall asleep with you in his arms. And you wouldn’t have it any other way.

#opfics #bartolomeo x reader #one piece imagine #bartolomeo imagine #one piece #bartolomeo reader #bartolomeo/reader #bartolomeo the cannibal #bartolomeo #one piece scenario #bartolomeo scenario #cliche with hazel #contest entry #cookie writes #scenario #nakunakunomi #tw: alcohol

[palettepainter]

Do you have any ships for the other UA staff? And i really like how much world building you do with the main cast. Any headcannons for what everyone does outside of being teachers/heroes?

Eeyup I do, I've got ships for most of 1A and a few ships with some pro hereos (including OC ships)

A few new recent ships I've come to like are - Fukidashi x Kamikiri, Kuroiro x komori and Rin x Aoyama. For the latter I saw a piece of fanart for this ship a while ago and I thought it was cool, I didn't have a ship for either of these characters before and both have been growing on me, IDK if I will ever make their ship cannon, but interactions are fun to think about with them

And thank you! I'm glad you like my work world building with the characters, honestly world building and thinking of headcannons are one of my fav past times - it's fun to dicuss and think about!

Since you said teacers/heroes I'm just gonna do the UA staff for now but if you want headcannons on anyone else feel free to ask!

-So Aizawa, outside of school work and planning training exercises, obvs he's a cat dad. I imagine he sometimes takes his paperwork to cat cafe's which he frequents often

-Mic's got his radio station to run but aside from that I take him to be a decorator. The kind of man to pick up random quirky stuff from the shop shelves and bring it home, he probably has a section in his and Aizawa's home dedicated to odd trinkets he's collected over the years. Aizawa has tried to stop him cuz it's 'useless junk' - but he had a change of heart when Mic brought home a cat themed sleeping eye mask

-I've already said this somewhere but Midnight goes out on girl nights with MT Lady and Uwambi. Jeanist tagged along one time because Uwambi said she could do Midnight's hair better then him, Jeanist tagged along only to defend his honour. Now Jeanist is an honorary member of their beauty gang. More often then not Jeanist is the one to keep them out of trouble, but Midnight knows he enjoy's it

-Snipe prolly likes to go home and have a snooze in a deck chair, out in the sun with his hat over his face. If he ain't snoozing I imagine he's taking care of his animals - Snipe has a horse no you can't make me think differently. Midnight's actually kinda scared of his horse, but Snipe babies her so much. He treats the horse like it's a dog half the time, Snipe loves his horsie

-Ectoplasm I imagine just likes to have a calm evening in front of the TV or read a book, on special occasions he goes out to karaoke with the rest of the teachers and he's always the best one there singing.

-Powerloader tinkers with stuff, he has a draw at his and Ecto's apartment filled with this and that, old machinery parts and gears, blue prints for old projects he never got round to finishing. Ecto has to persuade him every now and then to take a break from tinkering, a good night curled up on the sofa under a blanket with your bf is also a pass time Powerloader is always up for

-Thirteen I don't have many ideas for, I take her to be the type to love all things space themed to match with her hero suit. I take her to be the type to do star gazing if it's a clear night or to watch space themed documentarys

-Cementoss likes to read, with his hands being bigger for the use of his quirk he sadly can't do many other activities as his large fingers make it harder. He's come to enjoy books of all genres

-Blood king is a dog dad, he's got a dog. I think he's very soft with his dog, he tries to put up an intimidating act in front of his students, but he's a softie for his dog. Takes him on a walk after work around UA grounds. He also goes to bars sometimes with Hounddog

-Hounddog likes to have a beer and watch TV, sometimes he'll go to a bar with Vlad on special occasions. He's become used to city life, but sometimes he likes to just go on a wonder into the woods around UA to be by himself for a little bit

#MHA #MHA UA #UA staff #Aizawa #Present Mic #Midnight #Ectoplasm #Powerloader #Cementoss #Thirteen #Blood King #Hounddog

[celestialflamesme]

| KARMA AND CRAZY MIDGETS | A Venai One-shot Modern AU | Fairy Tail Next Generation |

Ships: Raidyn Dreyar x Venetia Redfox

Dedicated to @primaverafrog @luna-chan00 @biorckstudios18 @animaration-fts @cxndy-stxrs (Lol, I can't believe that no-paragraph breaks worked😂 I fooled Tumblr, y'all!😎😆)

You'd think having a town overtaken by the mafia would make people more apprehensive, if anything. But if Magnolians were anything, they were huge (and he simply could not stress this enough) idiots.

Raidyn prided himself in not partaking in anything Fairy-esque which was more than what he could say about some of his colleagues (Yes, they named themselves Fairy 'Tail' of all things! How no one in this town even got the spelling right was beyond him....)

"Did you hear about Fullbuster and that Fernandez chick? They're together now!" Some red head he'd forgotten the name of (What! It was too late to ask her now!) stage-whispered.

"Who? Storm?"

The entire cafe burst into laughter. "Like Storm would even look at a girl that's not Nashi."

Point proven. They!! were!! on!! first!! name!! basis!! (He bet no one in this room even knew his last name, let alone first. Not that it mattered. He liked slinking in the shadows, although it was practically impossible with his snow-white hair)

Geez, did these people have no lives? They were talking about delinquents for Pete's sake! And ones that sure loved messing up the town in their infamous brawls. But did the people care? Nooooo.

Ugh, one more year and he'd be out of this whacked up place. Wiping a tabletop, he forced a smile on his face and pretended to be interested in the topic.

"Cass, I'll have a black and a burger with fries," a voice interrupted. A voice he was very familiar with.

Did he happen to mention that the most annoying one of them all had made this her hangout spot?

At 5'1, you'd think Venetia Redfox would be the least intimidating person ever. But with crimson red eyes and a Devil-may-care attitude that made up for it, no one dared mess with her. She also caused 75% of the fights in town and had a smirk straight out of a Wattpad Bad-boy fanfic.

Boy, did he hate her.

"You're gonna chip it off with that grip, Blondie."

Oh my god, she did not just-

Raidyn shot her a glare and strode to the back of the register, faintly registering a chuckle (Who the hell did she think she was?) before picking up another order.

Little Miss Redfox however sat at a corner table and continued doing whatever the hell she usually did every Tuesday and Friday for 3 hours in a row (he should know, he was there glaring at her at closing time).

But the kicker this time was, at that moment, her phone rang. You have never really seen your world end right before your eyes if you haven't seen a 5 foot psychotic looking delinquent decked in leather that drove in a motorcycle there by the way (How does one willingly ride on a metallic death-trap like that?!) mumble the words 'Cha cha real smooth' and pick up a call with the most deadpan look ever.

Raidyn almost cried. Almost.

"Are you kidding me? Do it yourself! I swear to God, you always do this shit, Dragneel!" She got up from her seat and walked out, just like she looooved doing smack dab in the middle of her classes back at Magnolia High.

Good riddance.

........

He jinxed it. Karma was such a bitch.

Though no sort of karmic revenge could explain the shit he had to go through that week.

First off, he had 4 assignments due in by the end of the week. And turns out that was the exact week his dear red-head colleague decided would the perfect time for a vacation (It's the middle of September, where in hell's name was she planning to go to?)

Guess who had double shifts now?

This clown.

Ugh. Talk about chivalry and all that loyalty shit.

And yes, of course his car had to break down, and the local bus had to change it's schedule, which left him with his last resort: walking 4 and a quarter miles to school (Oh, he found that out the hard way all right) to college. Nashi and the Fullbuster kid (He sure loved walking around shirtless a little too much) decided to brawl (again) and bam, his locker got caught in the crossfire.

In fact things were so overly shitty that he became skeptical come Thursday when the day seemed relatively normal.

"You've been scowling all week, Dreyar. Anything the matter?"

Raidyn snapped out of his reverie and groaned. "Dad, why not just call me by my name like any normal person would?"

"Because that doesn't build-"

"CHARACTER!! WE GET IT!" His mom, Mirajane mimicked with a scowl. "Well, we're just going to get two Happy meals and then we're off, honey!"

He faintly registered Hunter snickering in the background (How immature. Raidyn wasn't one to get embarrassed by his parents. Plus, none of it would ever compare to the Disco Fiasco of 2001. How else do you think he got his car? Sweet, sweet guilt-tripping....)

The day buzzed past but his suspicions only intensified tenfold. (Call him a pessimist, he didn't care) And like a bull in a China shop, a tiny midget Redfox (the one and only) strut in.

Now, he was behind the counter at that moment handling the red-head (he really ought to learn her name someday) so he didn't notice 5 feet of brute strength that climbed up behind him and dragged him (poor, unsuspecting him) into the supply closet.

Oh no, he was not kidding. The supply closet. Of all the places the perpetrator could've-

The lights flickered on and he screeched (What? Any human would!) at the red irises staring determinedly into his own non-red eyes. (Seriously, were those even real?) Raidyn wasn't scared of no judgement, what did scare him (maybe not that much, now that he knew who those belonged to) was Satan's minion and her RED AS FUCK EYES! LIKE SERIOUSLY-

Clearing his throat and trying to salvage some faux dignity after that dramatic display, he grunted, "Touch me one more time and you're-"

"Yeah, yeah I get it, big guy. Look, I need a favour."

Venetia Redfox crossed her arms and stood threateningly in front of the entrance.

Who was she kidding? "Nope," he muttered and swerved right around her and made his way to the counter. (Pipsqueak. She really should've seen that coming.)

And right as he turned right towards the display case, he found her leaning against it with her shoulder, looking bored. "Yes. And now."

How the- PPHIGXUTDUTZUT- HOW DID SHE JUST-

"Parkour." She deadpanned.

Raidyn gave Venetia a long, long look and sighed, striding towards her. Her smirk widened in anticipation as-

He picked her up like a sack of potatoes and tossed her over his shoulder.

"WHAT THE- THIS IS HARASSMENT!!"

"Technically, you cornered me first," he stated matter-of-factly and dropped her on her feet (she looked like a hissy kitten, hmm.) Then proceeding to close the doors at her, he picked up a poster of her (he kept posters of all of them for a day like this. Ah, foreboding luck. He could feel it.) and pinned it onto the front door.

BANNED: VENETIA REDFOX

(Was he even allowed to do that, you might ask, but bah, who cares? Rabid girls are a nationwide threat.)

.................

As he wrapped up and prepared to leave, Raidyn had a niggling feeling he forgot something very, very crucial. Uh-

A body collided onto his own and climbed (I kid you not) him (THE FUCK KIND OF ANIMALS DID MAGNOLIA OWN?) before a tiny, rough hand muffled him. Oh no.

"Yoph kiphing mmph!" Raidyn groaned.

"I need you to teach me how to solve a Rubix Cube."

What. Excuse Raidyn for not knowing, but was Rubix cube some mafia codeword for mafia stuff? Stealing a car, fighting goons, skipping classes or drug dealing? Raidyn Dreyar had a long jail-free life ahead of him, mind you.

BUT SERIOUSLY, SOLVE A RUBIX CUBE?! HOW FRICKING RANDOM WAS THAT?! WHO EVEN TOLD HER HE KNEW HOW TO SOLVE ONE? WHAT WAS WRONG WITH THIS GODFORSAKEN TOWN?!!!

(Some might say he really had to stop reading those novels his mom bought. Some might be right. Whatever.)

Back to the topic on hand, he mumbled inaudibly. Her cropped hair tickled the sides of his face as she squinted at him, "What?"

Was she kidding right now? He pointed at her hand covering his mouth and her eyes widened as she let out a nervous laugh. (Geez, talk about stupid.)

He took in a deep breath and shook her off him. She stood there patiently (As patiently as a Redfox could, anyway.) as he straightened his shirt.

"First things first, NO!" And he stalked away.

He registered a groan from behind him and quickened his pace. However, the midget in question managed to propel herself at break-neck speeds and no joke, TACKLED him.

"PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE-"

"GET OFF ME, YOU PSYCHOTIC-"

Karma was such a bitch.

Macao, the guard standing by the parking lot, huffed, "They don't pay me enough for this."

...............

The only reason he was doing this was because she offered to fix up his car. (How did she even know it wasn't starting?) Also because it had been a while since he brushed up on his Rubix skills. Also because he wanted to get rid of the midget before she followed him home. (He figured his mom and dad would ENJOY her presence and replace him with her. He had crazy parents.)

Everyday she'd make sure to meet him (mostly by cornering him in the hallways) and in exchange for these classes, she'd work on his car at the weekend.

The first time she came over to his house (to work on his car, but he didn't know that) was rather embarrassing because he kinda sorta thought she was a burglar and locked his garage, yelling at the top of his lungs. His dad, Laxus came out with a taser (Dad sure loved his tasers.) Of course, when he finally opened the garage doors, he was met with an unimpressed look from the Redfox in question. (God, he was such a drama queen.)

The midget had a lot of trouble twisting her hands at the beginning of her sessions and he loved teasing her about her 'butter fingers' every time she accidentally flung the cube across the room or out the window in one rare occasion.

You know, she was kind of fun to have around.

"And that's the algorithm! You're all done!" He cheered, glad to have this behind him.

"Geez, you don't have to sound that excited to get rid of me." Venetia teased.

"What? No....." He feigned innocence.

"D'aww, admit it, you enjoyed my company."

"Please, more like I was scared for my life." He mumbled. She snorted.

"Catch you later, alligator."

Did she just- "NO WAY, JOŚE!" (That was lame even for him. Gosh dang it, she was laughing at him....)

Fricking Redfox.

......................

That weekend, Raidyn thought he deserved a good ol' evening out with his friends/colleagues (technically it was the manager that suggested it and he tagged along for the heck of it. He wasn't much of a social person, per se.)

He guessed Karma was still on a streak when Venetia Redfox entered the very same place they'd chosen for karaoke night and sat herself on one of the tables in front of them. And proceeded to order nothing.

The raven-head didn't even have her notebook (that always made her look disarmingly tiny) or her phone. Oh well, she must've been waiting for someone.

As the hours passed, he found himself exceedingly irritated for no reason.

"Who in their right mind would stand up The Venetia Redfox?" His colleagues whispered (rather loudly, according to him) and she just tapped her fingers away, oblivious to it all.

Fine, whatever.

"Sup." He towered over her and greeted, moving to take a seat next to her.

She blinked at him.

Okay, you couldn't exactly judge him. She was a regular and tipped good and people were being annoying about her and oh, her tapping was distracting and he had a massive headache coming. That's all. Simple as that.

"Don't you have better shit to do?" Red irises stared at him impassively.

"What are you doing here by yourself?" He asked coolly.

"Well, Nashi was supposed to-"

"I'M HERE! I'M HERE! I'M-" Both tilted their heads just in time to see Nashi ram into the glass doors. The now groaning pinkette was sprawled on her butt in front of the entrance. "Fricking doors."

"That's her." Venetia deadpanned. Raidyn shook his head sympathetically.

"Heyo Ven! Heh, kinda lost track of time beating Frostbite at Mario Kart," her doe eyes scanned him. "Raidyn! I didn't know you guys were friends!" She grinned.

Raidyn gave her a two-finger salute in greeting.

Nashi's eyes suddenly widened in realisation. "YOU'RE TEACHING HER THE RUBIX?!"

"Uh..."

"Yup." Venetia smirked. "He's a great teach. His parents have taken me in as their own."

"WAIT! WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN?! HOW WAS I NOT AWARE OF THIS?!"

"Just like that, Blondie. What can I say? It's the charm," She grinned at his bewildered face.

"You guys are all ready for the challenge then?" Nashi wiggled, now nervous, "Ven, I didn't mean to drag you into this, but Clint was-"

"It's cool, dumbass." Venetia shrugged. "Ain't your fault that they're dipshits."

At his confused look, Nashi clarified, "People like picking on us just because we're Fairies and held to the same standards as our parents. This frat dude decided he had to prove he was smarter than the Fairies and decided to pick a Rubix cube challenge of all things." She rolled her eyes. "Bet he taught he was real original thinking that one up."

"Bet he did." Storm scoffed. (Wait, what?)

"WHERE DID YOU COME FROM?"

"From- the front door?" Storm scratched his head in genuine confusion. (As if Raidyn was the weird one that sneaked up behind people like a stalker!)

Nashi facepalmed. "Why the heck are you here, Frostbite?"

"Just like that."

"Gosh, you're so annoying."

"Wanna say that to my face, Flamebrains?!" Storm yelled. (Oh, not again....)

"Guys, please don't...." Raidyn said, but both didn't seem to be paying attention to him.

"I SAID YOU'RE ANNOYING! FIGHT ME!" She threw a punch at him and before he knew it both were throwing napkin holders and vases at each other.

Venetia seemed to be enjoying the show, and pulled him to the back of the room, "This might take a while," she stated. "Wanna grab a milkshake?"

Well, he was kind of craving one. "Why not?"

..................

Today was the day of Venetia's challenge and Raidyn found himself nervous.

"You sure they won't wreck the place?" He grumbled for the umpteenth time.

Venetia groaned. "Do you have no faith in my abilities, Dreyar?"

"Nope. None whatsoever."

She raised an eyebrow, "Shame on you, then. I wouldn't let a good friend lose his job on my behalf. Dally ho, now!" She cheered.

He blinked at her, giving her a small reluctant smile. "Kick ass, Ven."

She tilted her head toward him and gave him a grin that knocked the breath out of him. "Thanks, Raidyn."

Shit. When did- when did she get so pretty?

"Look who we have here. You sure you're in the right place, Redfox?" A voice condescended. The owner of the voice was a grimy looking kid that looked like one of those middle-school spelling-bee losers that bragged about it whenever they met someone new.

"Clint." Venetia deadpanned.

Raidyn broke out into a fit of laughter, making 'Clint' (What kind of sad name was that?) glare at him. (Oh please, Little Clint was totally quaking in his boots! Why'd he even bother coming?)

"Let's begin then! Pick a shuffler." Clint drawled.

Venetia picked Nashi while Clint, after a moment of deliberation, picked one of his gang-mates (What did they call it? The Math club?)

"You may begin."

Both Nashi and the grimy dude shuffled for the better of 15 seconds. Clint just scoffed and clicked like a pretentious know-it-all, making comments like, "You're making it easier by shuffling harder, you know. Make it tougher for me, Nashi dear."

Raidyn had to give it to the pinkette, he would've smacked the teen by now.

"Okay," the referee, Storm cheered, (even though he looked like he was ready to kill Clint) "Timer starts, NOW!"

Both twisted and turned the cube furiously, Venetia sticking her tongue out in concentration while the teen twisted his arms like a man possessed.

"I'M DONE!" Venetia dropped the cube with a thud onto the table. "How's that for a Redfox?"

"E-excuse me? That's insane! It's only been," Clint checked the timer like the sore loser he was, "31 seconds!"

"Too bad," she smirked. (Well shit, that was hot...)

"I demand a rematch!"

Nashi moved to protest, but Venetia silenced her with a hand, "Whatever you say, kid..."

"This time, we swap cubes!" He whined like the little weasel he was.

3 minutes later, the rematch began and Venetia plopped her cube on the table with a glare.

"You think you're smart giving me a faulty cube, don't you?"

"And I'm done!" The weasel had the nerve to say. "I don't know what you're talking about Venetia, I used the same cube and it worked just fine. Maybe it was a stroke of luck on your part the first tim-"

He couldn't finish his tirade because Raidyn took that opportunity to check the cube (He didn't have to though, he believed Venetia enough to know she wouldn't make up excuses.) and yeeted it at his face like he'd been itching to do from the moment he saw the turd.

"YOU IDIOT! I'LL HAVE YOUR HEAD FOR THIS-"

"GET HIM!"

"OH NO, YOU DON'T!" Nashi growled, "I'M ALL FIRED UP NOW!"

Oh dear.

Okay, maybe the fight wouldn't get too big, these were scrawny kids after a-

Yeah, Nashi Dragneel just flipped a table on them.

There goes his job.

"GO, NASHI!" His manager cheered. (Okay, thank God this town was crazy.) "Raidyn! You can take the day off, kid. Have fun!"

Storm chose that moment to enter after his momentary toilet-break. "I WAS GONE FOR 3 MINUTES, WOMAN! WHAT THE HELL?!"

"JOIN US, STRIPPER!"

"WHAT DID YOU CALL ME?!"

"YOU HEARD ME!"

Venetia, unbothered by the chaos behind her, pulled him by the arm, her eyebrows furrowed at him, "Well, I tried. But hey, looks like you still have your job. That's a win, right?" She scratched her neck, laughing.

He sighed, putting caution to the wind. This was Ven after all. "Ice-cream date? My treat for today's win."

A smile erupted on her face, "Only if we take my bike there."

.............

Bonus (That no one asked for):

"Okay, so you have to grip it right. Not too tight. Just enough to nudge it in the right direction." Venetia explained, from where she was seated in front of him on the death tra- bike.

Raidyn nervously laughed, "I've got this in the bag, I don't know what you're worried about." The tilt in his voice gave away his panic, however. She raised an eyebrow.

"Humor me then."

Okay.

Five.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One.

GO!!

"DON'T CLOSE YOUR EYES, YOU IDIOT!!" Venetia screeched. She reached over and took over the handlebars just in time as they nearly crashed into a tree Raidyn was headed for.

He got off the bike and tripped, falling face-first on the ground. Fricking Jelly-legs. "I am never riding that death trap again." Raidyn groaned.

"What the heck?!" Venetia questioned, bewildered. "How'd you even get your driver's ed with such sucky basics?"

"IT'S A DEATH TRAP, THAT'S WHY!!"

"OF COURSE IT'S A DEATH TRAP IF YOU'RE NOT LOOKING WHERE YOU'RE GOING!!!!"

"Fight me Ven, I'm never getting on that thing again!"

"Too bad, I have to drop you back home too." The sneaky devil dared smirk at his plight.

Fricking Karma.

He wouldn't have it any other way, though.

.............

#raidyn dreyar #venetia redfox #shutora redfox #venai #gale #miraxus #fairy tail #ft next generation #venetia x raidyn #nashi dragneel x storm fullbuster #nashi dragneel #storm fullbuster #modern au #rubix cube #bad boy remake

[kieraambers]

Out To Sea - Chapter 1

Eloni loved being out at sea. Seeing the waves crash against the metal hull of the ship in a spray of blue, white, green and pink, seeing how the dark blue water moved with grace and ferocity, seeing how the sunset and sunrise was so perfectly, yet imperfectly captured by the water. He couldn’t help but fall in love with the sight of it. Then there were the lucky days where he got to see some animals jumping from the water. Random fishes, dolphins, one time he even saw a whale! While he knew of the viciousness of the waves, especially with him being robotic, he also saw a lot of the beauty that came with it. He was a sailor at heart.

Which made the fact he was built to be a Navy Soldier perfect for him. Eloni looked out along the deck of the ship out at the ocean. He was supposed to be looking for potential threats, but he was slightly distracted by the ocean’s beauty. He was hoping to see something jump out of the water today. Maybe he’ll see some dolphins. It was around the time of year again.

He jumped when a hand was placed on his shoulder, snapping out of his ocean-entranced daze. He turned around and was ready to throw a punch when he saw who was there.

“Hey Eloni!” Haym greeted with a smile, making Eloni relax with a shaky sigh.

“You know not to scare me like that.” Eloni said as he turned to his brother.

“Sorry.” Haym replied as he scratched the back of his head.

“You doing good?” Eloni asked. “Finished with the mechanism below deck?”

“Yup!” Haym said proudly. “Easy repairs! Should be smooth sailing without any repairs needed.”

“That’s good. Oh, did you check on the backup server?” Eloni asked.

“Of course, that’s the thing that lets us respawn!” Haym replied, maybe slightly offended.

“Just checking.” Eloni replied.

“Hey, if you’re done with your patrol we can go check on the others.” Haym suggested. “It’d be good to get a weather report from Purl-hew.”

“True.” Eloni nodded. “It would be nice to know of any danger.” Haym laughs and guides Eloni into the ship. They walk through the metal and wooden halls, seeing Zimelu wiping a few windows down.

“Hey Zimelu.” Haym waved to the red android, causing him to look over. He smiles and walks over.

“Hey Haym! Hey squirt!” He ruffles Eloni’s curly hair, causing Eloni to laugh. “Lemme guess, you guys are heading to Purl-hew’s room?”

“Yeah, how’d you know?” Eloni asked.

“Dad and Rin went there as well, apparently there’s an emergency.” Zimelu answered. “I stayed out because I still needed to work.”

“Wanna head there with us?” Haym asked. “It would be best if we were all informed.”

“Yeah. I can take a break from this.” Zimelu said as he placed both arms behind his head.

“Well, you’re always the one breaking the windows.” Eloni said.

“Hush.” Zimelu responded, annoyed. The three head towards the weather room, and Haym opens the door, seeing Rin, Purl-hew and Neon J over some screens. The three turn towards the door, making Eloni, Zimelu and Haym salute quickly.

“At ease.” Neon J commanded, making the three drop their salutes and move closer.

“We heard there was some emergency?” Eloni asked.

“Yes.” The monotone voice of Purl-hew answered and he gestured to the screen. A large red spiral was shown spinning a fair distance off. “A tropical storm is coming. A rather large one. We’ll need to prepare now if we want to be able to get back to shore.”

“Lucky you three got here then.” Rin told as he turned towards the four brothers. “Haym, Eloni, I’ll need you to place some heavy sandbags on the sides of the ship so it doesn’t jostle around during the heavy rain. Purl-hew, I’ll need to go and place anything not stationed down somewhere safe. And Zimelu, I’ll need you to check the integrity of the ship, we can’t have sea water dripping in.”

“Yes sir!” The four brothers said in unison with a salute.

“Good. Captain will continue to steer the ship and I will keep an eye on the storm.” Rin commanded. “Now go.” The four brothers quickly leave the room in a hurry, unaware of the camera's near them, which detected something close to the ship. Specifically, underneath it.

#Out To Sea AU #nsr #no straight roads #1010 #1010 white #1010 rin #1010 green #1010 eloni #1010 zimelu #1010 red #1010 yellow #1010 haym #1010 blue #1010 purl-hew #neon j

[oceanera12]

Fives has the Force (AU edition)

“Ooooh... meteor shower.”  - Hevy (Rookies)

Part 2: Rookies

The Rishi Outpost is… boring. Which is good for Fives. This is something everyone agrees on. Away from Jedi, away from the battles, away from other clones. Fives is hidden away, safe and sound. As such, no one complains, despite how boring and dull the routine becomes.

It also gives Fives time to read through and practice the notes General Shaak Ti left him.

Domino takes turns helping Fives with the exercises. Most of them involve just sitting on the ground and clearing his mind. But even if clones are trained to sit and wait (ambushes, scouting, etc.) just sitting on the ground, eyes closed, and focusing on breathing is so boring.

Of all the Dominos, Droidbait is the one most willing to sit and do nothing. Actually, he grows to enjoy the “meditation” things.

After a week on Rishi, Fives wakes up in a cold sweat, holding in screams and tears. He wakes up Echo in a panic and the next hour is Fives shakily explaining he saw Droidbait get shot, Cutup get eaten by a Rishi eel, and then the Rishi station blow up in a massive fireball with a bunch of droids and Hevy inside.

Echo’s pretty sure it was a nightmare at first. Obviously not fun to watch and concerning. Then Fives has it again a few nights later. And then again. And then he snaps out of one of his “meditation sessions” with it. And now Echo is researching Jedi abilities again and finds something called “Force visions” and he’s just “WELP. This might be a problem.”

Course they can’t tell their commanding officer about it because “clone’s don’t have the Force.”

Also, they don’t know exactly what’s going to happen or how to really prevent it. Or if they even can prevent it. But Force curse it all, they’re going to try and at least be prepared to fight or something!

So Domino is now doing a lot of target practice during their freetime, looking at battle tactics and strategies of invasions of the base, and familiarizing themselves with all weapons and ammunition on the base.

Cutup and Echo team up on researching the Rishi eel’s and also other giant animals looking for ways to kill them. 

Hevy and Fives practice hand to hand almost constantly, getting tips from Sergeant O’Niner who has never seen shinies throw themselves into this much training on a station outpost.

Droidbait throws himself into medical procedures and practices. Some of them he learned on Kamino, but most of them new. 

And unbeknown to all, Fives is trying to lift things with his head. Or at least nudge them. Tripping a droid or edging a grenade closer to it’s target seemed like a good idea. At first, he practiced alone, in his barracks, using a training ball clones used for hand-eye coordination practice. But when he started making progress, he tried tripping anyone who walked by him in the commander center. Sometimes, it worked. But mostly, it didn’t.

It was a month, maybe two later.

Meteor showers happen often on Rishi. About once a week. So Fives doesn’t know exactly why he was on edge. It didn’t help when the sentry didn’t respond to the Sergeant. Droidbait and Nub are ordered to find him.

Out of pure instinct, Fives grabs two blasters and tosses them to Droidbait and Nubs. Nubs looks confused but takes the blaster anyway. Droidbait is immediately on guard.

“DROIDS!”

Twelve Commando Droids vs seven clones (and pretty much zero battle experience on the latter’s account)

Nub goes down almost instantly. Droidbait was able to back up and get towards the command center before getting shot through his arm. He was grabbed by Sergeant O’Niner who threw him back into the room and to cover.

The rest of Domino is able to take out four of the Commando droids before the Sergeant goes down. With that, it’s just Domino. Cutup manages to close the main doors and hardwire it shut. Hevy and Echo carry Droidbait behind the control panel to better cover while Fives readies the emergency supplies the squad had hidden around the base (aka, the backpack of droid poppers and thermal detonators in the ventilation shaft, along with a Z-6 and sniper rifle)

Echo starts working on cutting the all clear signal just as the droids break through doors. Two Commando’s go down instantly from Hevy’s Z-6. The other six began to press in. One manages to get through but is heavily damaged and taken down quickly by Cutup and Droidbait, both covering Echo. The next follow suit. Two more are taken out by droid poppers and some well placed shots.

Three droids remain and Hevy’s gun overheats. Cutup and Fives take the fight to the droids, hand to hand. Droidbait takes a few pot shots here and there. Echo hurries to turn the all clear signal off. 

Everything happens at once.

Droid #1 grabs Fives and throws him clear across the room with a very hard punch. Then the droid pins Cutup to the ground, his arm is snapped in two and then given a few broken ribs for good measure, before the droid reaches for his gun. Droid #2 yanks Echo away from the control panel and throws him across the room. Echo hits his head and falls unconscious. Then Droid #2 finds Droidbait, lifts him by the neck and begins to slowly choke him to death. Droid #3 shoots Hevy through his arm twice, then through the torso, sending the clone to his knees, then to the ground. 

Pushing himself to his feet, Fives finds himself looking at a scene of certain death. He screams, “NO!” and reaches out his hands in desperation, like he can stop it. A shockwave spreads from Fives and it throws all the droids back (think Ezra in Rebels when Zeb is almost killed by Kallus).

Cutup manages to grab his gun in the confusion and shoot his would be killer. Droidbait ignores the pain in his injured arm, grabbing the commando’s head and ripping it from the body with full force (while screaming in pain). Fives is too shocked to recover from what just happened to help Hevy but Echo wakes up just in time to shoot the stupid thing.

No more droids left.

Echo heads to the medbay, leaving Fives to position the three injured Dominos and get Cutup to stay down. The two treat their brothers to the best of their knowledge (Droidbaits the best medic, but he isn’t exactly able to help other than give some friendly advice or things he’d read). 

None of the Domino’s mentions Five’s Force push. Echo doesn’t even ask before he shoots the video surveillance module, effectively destroying all video evidence of the attack.

The radio was destroyed in the fire-fight and the “all-clear signal” button had also been destroyed, leaving it hard-wired at the moment.

Echo and Fives grab a blaster for each injured man, then take the Z-6, sniper rifle, and a few other goodies for themselves. Then they face the door and wait for whatever comes next.

With the radio down, no one receives the call from the inspection team.

When Commander Cody and Captain Rex find a dead deck officer, a few downed Commando droids, and a cut hole in the blast doors, they’re ready for anything. So it’s a bit of surprise to see five shinies (three of them lying on the hard ground, injured but alive, and two of them holding blasters ready).

General’s Skywalker and Kenobi is alerted immediately through the inspection ship’s radio and Rishi is secured in a matter of minutes.

Domino is taken aboard the Resolution, all five being placed in the medbay, despite some protests. Some bacta and rest for a few days fixes the crew right up, ready, and willing, to return to Rishi base. 

Except for one problem:

Rex had asked Echo and Fives to explain what had happened on Rishi. Echo had done most of the talking (as Fives was a terrible liar) and even without the Force visions or powers, the tale had impressed the Captain. 

He had told General Skywalker, who had also been impressed.

Which is how Domino squad finds they are now assigned to the 501st Legion.

Under a famous Jedi General

Around a lot more clones (which translates to eyes and ears)

And in more dangerous situations (in which Fives may or may not do something stupid, whether on accident or on purpose)

...

...

...

None of them can sleep that night.

((Random note that I noticed rewatching Rookies recently: Did anyone else notice when Nub and Droidbait went to look for the deck officer THEY DIDN’T TAKE A BLASTER? Seriously, they just walk down the stairs, come face to face with the Commando droids and yell “DROIDS!” as loud as they can and then they both get shot and die. I mean, I get nothing is supposed to happen on Rishi and they’re all relaxed but TAKE YOUR KRIFFING BLASTER, DANG IT. THEN YOU MIGHT HAVE LIVED LONGER.))

Part 3: https://oceanera12.tumblr.com/post/615352813810302976/fives-has-the-force-au-edition

#star wars the clone wars #domino squad #echo #fives #hevy #cutup #droidbait #rishi moon outpost #rip #nub and o'niner #sorry #couldn't have witnessess #captain rex #commander cody #anakin skywalker #obi-wan kenobi #501st legion #brothers in arms #clones #this is fun #don't know where it's going #but excited to see #protect fives #at all cost #but these dominos are surviving rishi at least #i can't help it #fives has the force #au #part 2 #part 3 coming soon

[tackyink]

Still holding onto the hope of running out of steam soon so I can work on other fics. In any case, this has a title now. It’s Degrees of Separation.

I hate this chapter solely because in my mind it was supposed to be one, then it got long and turned into two awkward chapters, and by splitting them I was left with this thing in which nothing happens. Why would you want to read this? I don’t know. I don’t know if I want to read it, even though I did. Repeatedly. To edit out all the typos I’m sure I’ve left in. I’m going to put a Golden Sun stream on the background, play Animal Crossing and drown my frustration in Coca Cola. It’s been a long week.

One last detour before Sabaody. Alex is bored, the Heart Pirates reenter the scene, and Law has an “if it isn’t the consequences of my own actions” moment.

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2

— — — — — — — —

Chapter 3

There was a storm.

Alex didn’t know if it was related to the Aqua Laguna that the ship had set out to avoid or it was simply one of the Grand Line’s meteorological whims, but two days after departure, the noon sky went so dark it was like a moonless night had come down early, the winds picked up, and the waves started to beat against the ship’s hull in an uneven rhythm.

The crew was all over the place, trying to steer the ship and reef the sails as they ushered the passengers inside to keep them from falling overboard. Alex had been caught in bad weather travelling before, but never to this extent. She had a hard time thinking of anything scarier than being at the mercy of a windy sea. Nowhere to run, nothing to do except wait and pray that the waters would take pity on you and let you live another day. Alex wasn’t the praying sort, so while she waited below deck with a group of people as scared as she was, if not more, she couldn’t even do that.

The nervous chatter of the passengers and the parents’ attempts to console their children were muffled by the deafening sounds of the wind, the waves, the creaking wood, and the crew’s rushed footsteps on the deck.

Alex stood the entire time in front of a porthole in the dining hall where they had gathered. It helped with the seasickness from the violent rocking of ship, it was better than to look at the other people, and, ironically, storms were her favorite kind of weather. She wondered what would be worse if they sunk, getting caught on deck and risking being swallowed by the ocean, or waiting for the insides of the ship to become a water tomb. For a long time, or at least it seemed like it, that was the main thought that repeated in her mind, until the possibility of dying felt so remote that she wasn’t even registering. Like when you picked a word and turned it around in your mouth and mind so many times that it lost all meaning. Of course she couldn’t die there. She had never done so before, so why start now?

It was absurd, but it helped. And it turned out to be right, too.

After a while, the storm subsided, and an hour later, the crew let them out on deck again. The ship wasn’t intact, but they hadn’t lost anybody, and that was as much as one could ask for when dealing with an angry sea.

In the end, there was only one major inconvenience: due to the damage, the ship had to change its course in order to dock somewhere safe to undergo repairs.

❦

Her hair had gotten longer to the point of annoyance. The tips brushed her shoulders already; long enough to get in her face whenever it wanted, but too short to tie it in a decent ponytail. Sure, she could have done it anyway, but she was vain and would have rather dealt with the hassle than solve the problem in an aesthetically suboptimal way.

The sunspots on the left side of her face were getting more noticeable, as were the dark circles under her eyes and the shy wrinkles that were attempting to come out. For someone who could spend so much time picking her appearance apart in front of a mirror, she didn’t look particularly healthy or well put together. She supposed that was part of the appeal, in a masochistic way: to find as many faults as she could, and invent some if needed.

Applying concealer under her eyes and red lipstick just for the sake of having some color on her face, she thought she needed to find herself a headband and a healthier pastime posthaste. Porta Bella was a quaint town, but there wasn’t much in the way of entertainment, and she’d had only her thoughts for company for too long.

She had been stuck there for two weeks. After narrowly avoiding disaster, the ship had been moored in the harbor for several days, and by the time it was fit enough to sail, the captain decided to go back to Water 7 to have proper repairs done. The passengers had been given the choice to remain in Porta Bella and find another ship, or to return to Water 7 with the crew. Going back wasn’t an option for Alex when Sabaody was so close that it felt like she could have seen it if she climbed on a tall tree, she didn’t trust a half-baked repair job to keep her safe, and, most importantly, someone had tried to kill Iceburg and Enies Lobby had kind of blown up in the following days of her departure from Water 7.

She didn’t want to think that the tracksuit shipwright had something to do with it, but the conspiracy theorist in her told her that it was totally his fault. That nose? Could totally be used as a murder weapon and nobody would be none the wiser.

The few passengers aside from Alex who had decided to stay in Porta Bella were already gone, leaving the inn she was staying at delightfully empty, but also making her wonder if she had messed up by not taking the first random ship that would let her sail away from there.

The island was small, so much so that Porta Bella was the only town in it, and much of it was empty. For many years there had been a migratory tendency pushing young people from nearby islands to the Sabaody Archipelago, and this one seemed to have fallen victim to it, too. The moderately long recording time of the Log Pose didn’t play in its favor, either. Five days and a half was a long time to wait when the Red Line was only a couple of days away, so not many ships stopped there. An abandoned watchtower in the outskirts of town was the only other notable location.

She left her inn room that morning, picking up a tea to go, and hoping that a good slap of early morning breeze in the face would wake her up.

Every day since she arrived, she went to the port to look for any newly arrived ships and talk to the sailors. Every time, if there was a new one at all, she was told that there were reports of increased slaver activity in those waters, and that they were headed anywhere but the Sabaody Archipelago until Marine HQ got its shit together and stopped the kidnapping crews sailing rampant. Given that the Marines must have been scrambling to recover from the loss of Enies Lobby, nobody thought they were going to get on the case anytime soon.

These series of unfortunate coincidences didn’t surprise her. Her life was often comprised of really small strokes of bad luck that were nothing more than inconvenience on their own, but that added up to really grate on her nerves. This was business as usual, so she just had to keep trying. The temporary finish line was only a stone’s throw away.

Not that human trafficking stopped at any point of the year, but she hadn’t taken into account the seasonal opening of the archipelago’s biggest auction. Thinking that not even the schedule of the Human Auctioning House had changed during her time away gave her a twisted sense of familiarity. That son of a bitch kept finding novel ways to fuck her over without even being aware of her existence. It had to be a gift, for sure.

As she walked to the half empty docks, she hoped that that was the day she lucked out. She had already decided that, if she couldn’t find a direct ship to Sabaody in the following three days, she’d take the roundabout way and sail to a bigger island with, hopefully, a wider variety of ships. She would go completely broke in the process (and there she found the thing that was as terrifying as being caught in a storm at open sea), but one had to crack eggs to make an omelette.

Ten minutes and an empty cup of tea into her stroll, she stopped in front the single newly arrived ship and thought that maybe she hadn’t lucked out, but that sure as hell life was full of weird coincidences. Because there were few submarines sailing the Grand Line, even fewer painted yellow, and she guessed that only one with that particular Jolly Roger plastered on it. Her wish of seeing it up close had been granted when she least expected it, and it didn’t disappoint. It had a curious design, half ship and half submarine. A shipmarine.

Feeling revitalized by the pun, she craned her neck and got on her tiptoes to accomplish nothing at all. She couldn’t see any of the pirates on the deck, at least from where she was standing, and what else was she supposed to do, walk closer to find a friendly face and say hi like a functioning human being would? Yeah, no. She simply stood there and stared like a creep.

The paint job of the thing was hypnotic, and she didn’t mean it as a compliment. It looked like the idea of a man who thought the peak of design was making his vehicle look like a wasp with a decal of the word ‘DEATH’ instead of stripes to look extra edgy. And okay, they were pirates, pirates killed people, it was something that came with the job – but plastering it over the ship like that was a little heavy handed, and she didn’t have any doubts as to which guy with matching tattoos had come up with those brilliant design choices. Come to think of it, wasn’t there a song about a yellow submarine? The one from those singers her mom liked when she was young… Maybe the captain was a fan, too. Maybe they sung it on board. She laughed at the thought.

It didn’t leave her indifferent, that was for sure, and that could count as a compliment, since she had seen a ton of ships throughout her life. Props to Trafalgar Law for standing out among the crowd.

If the pirates weren’t around at the moment, it had to mean they were inside of the ship or already out in town. It was early still, but she was sure it was a matter of time until she ran into them – the town was pretty small, around a hundred, counting sailors, on a good day, news travelled fast, and these guys didn’t dress unassumingly.

With that in mind, she kept an eye out for familiar faces and resumed her unfruitful rounds around the port. Another day, another set of rejections. She tossed her paper cup in a trash can and made her way to the coffee shop where she always had the second tea of the day, sometimes even the third, if she was feeling particularly down about her current predicament.

She placed her order at the counter and waited for it. The owner, a balding middle aged man whose name she didn’t know but who had started to get chatty after she showed up a few days in a row, tried to strike up a conversation while he heated the water. “Did you hear? A pirate crew arrived in town last night.”

Alex wasn’t much for conversation in the mornings, and usually her replies to his attempts were rather apathetic, but the owner had struck gold with this particular topic. “I just saw the ship,” she repeated. “Have they done anything?”

“Not yet,” he replied with the clear implication that they soon would. “But it’s a Supernova’s crew, from what I’ve heard. Their captain’s a scary guy – how do they call him…?”

She had mixed feelings about that. She’d seen scary first hand, and in her experience it came in the shape of kidnapping crews, bubble helmets, or suits and fedoras. And ultimately, it was the fedoras’ fault she was in that coffee shop in the first place.

“Surgeon of Death,” she replied. There was no doubt that with that price on his head he was a walking danger, but after their first encounter, she had a feeling he was more the selective type than the let’s wreck everything in our path kind of guy. Not that his list of attributed crimes would lead anybody to think that. “Do you have trouble with pirates often? Being close to Sabaody and all.”

“Sometimes, but they usually go to more interesting places. It used to be as easy as calling the garrison to get rid of ‘em, but with Marineford so close it’s no wonder no one wants to be here any longer.”

“There used to be Marines here?”

“Yes, at the watchtower in the outskirts, but they left after some of the rooftop caved in. Building’s condemned now. A pity, ‘cause the watchtower’s been there forever, and they’ve let it fall apart.”

“That’s a shame,” she said. “How old’s the tower?”

The water started boiling then, and he turned around to remove it from the fire and make her drink. “Tale goes that it’s old as the stone entrance, but who knows,” he said with his back turned to her. “It’s not like we have any experts to come check.” He slid her the drink over the counter. “In case, try to avoid those guys. A woman traveling alone is an easy target for criminals.”

“Yes, I know,” she replied, putting a few belis in the counter and taking the cup by the handle. “Thanks.”

She chose to sit on the terrace, next to the railing that separated it from the sidewalk, to have a good view of the street. She was in a sort of commercial district, if a main street with a dozen of shops could be called that. Most people who stopped at the island had to pass by sooner or later, so it was the busiest place in town. Not so early, though. It wasn’t opening hours yet.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched like a hawk the man who was monopolizing the only issue of the World Economic Journal and snatched it as soon as he got up to leave, so fast that it turned the heads of the other two people on the terrace.

News of the assault of Enies Lobby had been filling pages for a week already, and that day wasn’t an exception. The Straw Hat Pirates had done the unthinkable, and while in other circumstances Alex might have been watching the situation with amusement from afar, she was also pretty annoyed at them, because their stunt no doubt played into the poor supervision in the waters near Sabaody. On the other hand, she hoped that this also meant that neither Marines nor Cipher Pol would be very invested in finding her in the near future if she ended up a suspect.

She was also a little worried about Iceburg’s condition, but the newspapers hadn’t reported his death, so she had to assume he had recovered from the attempt on his life.

She skimmed over the usual columns prattling about the lack of security at sea and how worrying it was that a whole new generation of rookies with astronomical bounties were about to set foot in the Sabaody Archipelago at the same time. She didn’t think having a handful extra menaces sailing around mattered anymore, considering the state of the world at large, but the pearl-clutching sold newspapers, and she wondered about her sense of self-preservation when she realized with disappointment that, at the rate she was moving, she was going to miss the Supernova meetup in Sabaody. Her curiosity was going to bite her in the ass one day, she thought, before remembering that it already had, and that was the exact reason she was in her current position.

She skim read a few pages looking for interesting headlines, getting to the less important news that didn’t warrant spreads, editorials and pictures that took up half the page, and paled when she read the contents of an unassuming text box.

An unfortunate accident in the island of Harlun had blown up the local library while it was undergoing renovations. Nobody had been hurt, said the write-up, but the building had been destroyed in the ensuing fire and an investigation was still ongoing to determine what had happened. At least she guessed that the last part of the article said so, because she choked on her tea as she read it and spit some of it on the paper, making the ink run.

It couldn’t be a coincidence. Well, it technically could be, but no way she was buying that. The real question was if they’d be able to link the Poneglyph to her, and considering she that she was the person who spent the most time in the archive and she had conveniently left right before construction work took place, she had a pretty good chance to win that lottery. Oh, God, what if her coworkers mentioned that she used to go to the archive on Sundays, alone?

Her first impulse was to bang her head on the table and hide it between her arms, but the surface was sticky, so she ended up regretting it immediately. Instead, she put her elbows on the table, and covered her face with her hands. Her heart was beating loudly and her mind was running wild thinking of possible courses of action. She was on a timer. Getting to Sabaody as soon as possible was a necessity now. If there was a place she could hide, ironically, it was there.

“I see life’s treating you well.”

Alex’s heart tried to leap out of her mouth when she heard someone talk to her from so up close, but one of the perks of being born with a stick up her ass was that she only tensed up when she was startled, so she saved herself the embarrassment of yelping or jumping on her chair. She removed the hands from her face to look at the person, and the sight of a spotted furry hat and a yellow and black hoodie punched her in the eyes.

“Oh, hello,” she said, feeling more relaxed when she realized it was the Surgeon of Death leaning against the balustrade, not law enforcement. Her life had taken a turn for the surreal in a very short time, had it not?

His smirk faltered. “You aren’t surprised?”

“Saw your ship,” she said with some difficulty, and she drank some tea to swallowed the knot that had formed in her throat. Of all the times for him to appear... “Town’s small, we had to run into each other.”

“Hm.”

If she exerted a bit of imagination, she’d say he looked a bit disappointed. Why would he? No idea, but it was funny to think he was, and she was in dire need of funny.

He asked, “What are you doing here? This is far from your island.”

Farther than he knew, she almost said, but that was a can of worms and not relevant in the situation at hand. Feeling too overwhelmed to give long explanations, she handed him the newspaper open by the page she’d been reading. Talking could happen once she arranged her own thoughts, and only then.

“That’s…” He took it from her hands and read for a few seconds. An inscrutable expression gradually morphed into a look of pure indignation. “What’s the meaning of this?”

She was taken aback by the unexpected display of emotion. It was odd to see him react so strongly to something that didn’t concern him. “It isn’t that surprising, considering—”

“How is it not?” He retorted, annoyed. “Sora can’t lose against these weaklings!”

She stared at him in confusion. “What?” she blurted out, realizing afterwards that he was talking about the comic strip at the bottom of the page. And to be fair, she was going to tell him to look further up when the meaning of his words sunk in, but then she was the one leaning over the railing to look at the paper he was holding. “Wait, really? That’s impossible!”

“That’s what I’m saying!”

Upon reading the message under the strip, she complained, “On break until next month?” She sat back on the chair, mumbling, “I don’t even know if I’ll be alive next month,” before taking a sip of tea.

“Summer vacation cliffhanger,” he replied. “And you still haven’t told me what you’re doing here.”

“Read the news above.”

He looked at the paper again, and his eyes widened the smallest fraction as recognition dawned. That reaction was more appropriate. “Do you think it was…?”

“I’m sure of it. It’s too much of a coincidence.”

“Are you wanted now?”

“I don’t know. They have reason to suspect I knew it was there.” And she added with a bit of humor that she wasn’t really feeling, “If I get a bounty, I’ll say it was your fault.”

“I don’t think that’s going to do you any service.” A smirk returned to grace his features as he passed her the newspaper back. He was clearly amused by her misfortune, and that was the only good thing that had come out of it. “What do you plan to do?”

Alex let out a long exhale through her nose. She wanted to say that there was no plan, but there always was. Planning was something she did obsessively. “I need to get to Sabaody as soon as possible.” It was the only option. She could have elaborated, but again, she didn’t feel like it. Too early, too stunned to talk about serious stuff. Reality hadn’t fully sunk in. “You’re on Sora’s side? Really?”

He frowned at her. He did a lot of frowning, she thought. He was going to get wrinkles young. “Of course I am.”

“But he’s a Marine,” she said, a smile growing on her face despite herself. “Aren’t you one of the bad guys?”

“The Germa are vile,” he retorted, and perhaps realizing he was getting too much into the conversation, he went back to the other, much less fun topic. “Sabaody’s going to be full of Marines in no time, though.”

She was internally screaming, but it came out as a drawn out sigh. “Thanks to you, no doubt.”

“The merit isn’t all mine.”

“I know. You lot have been all over the news for weeks.” He looked awfully self-satisfied when she said that. “I guess you’ll be heading straight there after this place?”

“That’s the plan if there aren’t any stops in between. By the way, do you know how long until the Log Pose sets?”

“Five days, ten hours and twenty-six minutes,” she said blandly, repeating the number she had been told by several people when she first arrived to Porta Bella. It made her miserable, so of course she wasn’t going to forget it anytime soon.

“And the seconds?”

It took her way longer than necessary to realize he was messing with her. “Oh, fuck off.” She returned her attention to the newspaper so she didn’t have to look at his stupid face while he thought he was so funny. “Fishman Island’s right around the corner. Try not to drown.”

“We have a submarine.” He sounded amused still. Alex couldn’t tell if annoying her gave him that much joy or if he was having an exceptionally good day. He was pretty cranky for a while back in Duster Town, but now that she recalled, his mood seemed to improve every time he got one over her. “I don’t think it’ll be a problem.”

“Regular submarines can’t reach Fishman Island.”

He frowned again. “Why not?”

“It’s too deep. They can’t endure the water pressure.”

She could sense the levity from moments ago was gone by the way his jaw set. “But we heard ships can traverse the Red Line through an underwater route.”

“That’s why you go to Sabaody first.” She was exerting a considerable effort to give these really boring explanations that no one was going to thank her for. “You find yourself a good coating engineer to put a resin bubble around your ship and that’ll protect it.”

He seemed to study this new information from several angles before he spoke. “That’s good to know.”

“You’re welcome.”

He gave her a pointed look, but didn’t say anything about the jab. “Is it easy to find one?”

“There’s an entire section of the archipelago dedicated to it. It’s going to cost you, though. And depending on who you choose, there’ll be a waiting list.”

“Really?”

“Good coating engineers are few and far in between, and nobody wants to find out someone did a half-assed job on their sheep five kilometers underwater.”

“That’s…” He made a meditative pause. “…Reasonable.”

“I thought you were going to say something completely different.”

“It sucks too.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. Her life would be so much easier if one didn’t have to jump through thirty hoops to cross that chunk of rock. “In a hurry to get to the New World?”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to, either, because she was busy contemplating a new idea that had sprung in her mind. One that she’d rather avoid if she had other options left, and she wouldn’t know until a few days passed, but... this coincidence could prove to be useful yet.

“What?” He looked at her with suspicion.

“Nothing.” And just to get on his nerves a little, she added. “Yet.”

He fixed his gaze on her face, most likely gauging her intentions. Alex was incapable of looking at people in the eye, but she was good at faking it and not flinching under pressure, so she stared back.

“Do I want to ask?”

“I don’t know. Follow your instincts.”

To her surprise, he dropped it and took a step back from the railing. “I need to go back to the sub and see if the others are up already.”

Good. “For someone with a target so big on you, you wander a lot without them.”

“I like taking walks alone,” he said, like he didn’t think much of it. Like he could not fathom how he of all people could possibly be in danger from anybody else. “See you around?”

Was that a wish, a threat, or a pleasantry? “Without a doubt,” she replied, not bothering to hide the tedium in her voice. Damn empty town and damn slavers. “This town isn’t big enough for the two of us.”

She could have sworn he smiled a little at that, but Law shoved his hands in his pockets and made his leave too fast to see.

He was far enough that he wouldn’t hear her if she spoke in a normal volume when she remembered something important, so she resorted to raising her voice before the Heart crew did something they could regret. “Go to the Old Brewery if you don’t want to die! The Silver Fountain serves piss for drinks!”

He turned to look at her with the same curiosity back when she’d told him weapons weren’t allowed in the library, but this time he nodded in acknowledgement before making his exit.

The other customers on the terrace stared at her warily, but honestly, she couldn’t bring herself to feel bad for them even when the owner immediately came out to ask if she was okay and if the scary surgeon had said anything bad to her. At least something interesting was happening.

❦

Alex had a love-hate relationship with heights.

She inevitably got queasy when she was somewhere high up that didn’t have barriers or anything she could hold onto, but that didn’t stop her from going up there, anyway. It was like a very stupid magnetic pull that one day would end with her skull split open.

(It was the wind and the view. She knew that. It was also one of the few options she had to feel taller than most people.

But mostly the wind.)

The stone arch at the entrance of the town that gave Porta Bella its name was surrounded by the remains of a stone wall. First century, she guessed by the roughness of the stone blocks and the bit of mortar she scraped from between when she inspected it for the first time. It was easily over two meters, and only because the topmost part had fallen off. The blocks that hadn’t been taken away for use in newer constructions were still next to the wall, inviting anyone who’d dare to step on them to use them to climb.

She knew she wasn’t the only idiot who had felt the temptation, because the stone was worn from use. She’d also seen kids running at the top of the wall and no one had tried to stop them, and there were worse ways to channel all the nervous energy she had from reading that newspaper article.

She wasn’t a very proficient climber, but the blocks were positioned in such a way that getting to the top was easy as pie. No doubts someone had moved them for that exact purpose. When she was high enough, she threw a leg over the wall, then the other one, and sat facing the harbor.

The wind was nice up there.

She wouldn’t stand on the wall for all the money in the world and getting down was going to be an ordeal, but that was a problem for the Alex of the future.

That day had woken up to four ships in the harbor, counting the pirates’ submarine. Two would go away at the end of the week. The third was leaving that night. No vessels on the horizon.

She sighed. If the pirates were on an adventure, they sure had the shittiest of lucks docking only in the most boring islands the sea could offer.

With nothing better to do at the moment, and trying to delay as much as possible the moment she’d regret climbing that high, she moved towards the shadow of the arch without lifting her butt from the stone and rested her back against it.

She was at a loss. Sailing further away from the Sabaody Archipelago was counterproductive, but so was staying in the same island for too long, since she had no means of protecting herself if something happened. Then again, if she ended up broke before she got to Sabaody, she’d have to stay in whatever island she was to earn money to keep travelling.

All the options sucked. Maybe she needed to sleep on it to see what the lesser evil was. She had, after all, a few days to make a decision.

She looked at the sea, tinted dark green by her sunglasses, in what she assumed was Sabaody’s direction. So close, yet so far away. The skies were clear and the water calm, and though there weren’t any sailors to be found in the harbor, she could see the shadow of a couple of fishing boats in the distance. Wasn’t there a song that went like that? I'm sittin' on the dock of the bay, wastin' time…

She hummed, looking at nowhere in particular and letting her thoughts drift with the waves.

❦

She knew better than to cut through the lawless areas alone when it was getting late, so she had no one else to fault when she split from her group of classmates after spending their free day in Sabaody Park. It was only her and her stupid pride that didn’t allow her to admit that she didn’t think this was a great idea and that she didn’t want to go back to her room alone.

She broke into a sprint as soon as she heard the smallest rustle behind her, and that advantage proved to be essential, because someone started chasing after her. It sounded like more than one person, but she didn’t have time to look or tell how many sets of footsteps were behind her – she just ran like her life depended on it in the direction of the bridge that connected to the next grove, hoping that there would be other people there, and then—

—then she saw an open bar, a lone building in an even lonelier grove.

She rushed inside it, gasping for air so hard that she couldn’t speak, no matter how much she tried to explain to the bartender why she had barged in like that.

It wasn’t necessary.

“Don’t worry, dear, they’ve been hanging around these parts for a while,” she said, leading her to a chair with a gentle hair. “You’re safe here.” Her warm black eyes turned to someone else, and though Alex had trouble focusing on what was going on, she saw an old man with long white hair. “Why don’t you go take out the trash, Ray? They’ve driven off my clientele enough.”

“Sure,” the man replied, getting up from his stool and going outside.

Alex thought it was a horrible idea to send an old man to fight off a kidnapping crew, but that was because she didn’t know these people yet.

“Don’t worry about him. Here,” the woman gave her a glass of water. “Name’s Shakky. Rest all you need.”

❦

Footsteps approached. She shut up immediately.

“I like that song.”

Singing helped when she had too much anxious energy. It was probably related to breathing control. She had stopped anxiety attacks in the making like that sometimes.

It didn’t help at all when someone had been listening in and she hadn’t noticed.

“Oh. Thanks. Um, hi.”

“Hi,” Bepo said smiling. “I heard from Captain you were here.”

Even though she was sitting on top of the wall, Bepo’s head went past it. If he stood on his tiptoes, he could have rested his head on her legs. On one hand, it was a little aggravating that she had to climb so high up only to be marginally taller than him. On the other, Alex was filled with the urge to scratch his ears.

“Yeah, I’m stuck waiting for a ship,” she told him. “Ideally, you wouldn’t have found me here.”

“Oh? Where are you going?”

“Sabaody.”

“Isn’t that very close? How come you haven’t found a ship?”

“There’s kidnapping crews infesting the waters. You know what those are?”

“Uh… isn’t it in the name?”

Alex blinked. “Right. Don’t mind me.”

He fell into thought for a few seconds. “Why are they kidnapping people?”

“To sell. They get auctioned in the archipelago.”

Bepo frowned. “I see.”

“Hey, don’t worry,” she said, smiling for his sake. “Nothing’s going to happen to your crew. You’re strong.”

He beamed with pride. “Yeah, we are! We’ve been training for years to come here!”

Alex mirrored his expression without thinking. “Your Captain said you’ve been friends since you were kids. Did you—”

“Bepo!” Someone called out. “What are you doing?”

“Ah, sorry!” Bepo said, turning around to see the newcomer. “I was catching up…”

A woman with curly hair and a severe expression walked up to them, hands on her hips, and she looked a little confused when she laid eyes on Alex. She was struggling to place her. “Have we seen each other…?”

“On passing. I’m the Duster Town dumbass that opened the library for your Captain.”

“Oh, yeah, now that you mention it—” The confusion was back. “Isn’t this place a little too far from there?”

“I’m running away from justice.” She didn’t offer further explanation.

Bepo didn’t need it. “So are we!”

A barely contained laugh made it past the woman’s lips. “Oh well, if you’re a fellow criminal…” She extended a hand towards Alex. “Name’s Ikkaku. What did you do, keep too many books past the return date?”

“I wish.” She shook her hand. “Alex.”

“So that’s your name?” Bepo asked.

She turned her attention towards the bear. “I never told you?”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Wow, I am rude,” she said to herself. “Anyway, hope you’re ready to take it easy, because you have five long days ahead of you.”

Ikkaku groaned. “I don’t mind, but some of the guys get so jittery after a couple days on land. I don’t suppose there’s a very active nightlife in this place?”

“Actually, there are two taverns in the entire town.”

“Oh, that sounds like something to keep ‘em busy.”

“I don’t think you want to go to one of them, though.” She wondered if the captain was going to pass the message or they would come to regret their choices. “There’s also an abandoned Marine outpost right outside of town, if they don’t want to be drunk 24/7.”

“Might be worth checking out, but I’m pretty sure they’ll take the ale.”

“Can’t blame them.” She was tempted to drown her sorrows in alcohol, and she barely ever drank.

She took a look around the desolate harbor, the small houses and the half-fallen wall with a disappointed look. “Well…” she began, “Bepo, we need you for the crates. He’s been waiting and he’s cranky enough already after—”

“Ah! Sorry!” He said, bowing at her and looking more upset than the comment would suggest. Maybe they didn’t treat him as well in the sub as she had assumed. When he turned to Alex, he also bowed repeatedly. “I’m really sorry, but I need to go!”

“Sure, no problem!” she said, making an effort to sound lively. She felt so fake when she did that. So customer servicey. “See you!”

As the pirates left, she tried to look at them in a different light. While it wasn’t too difficult to believe they would be mistreating the mink of the crew, even if they hadn’t been unkind while she was watching. He seemed shy. Maybe that was all there was to it? But the reaction seemed a little extreme. She would pay closer attention from then on.

❦

Her privileged observation point let Alex see a lot of things that day. She saw more of the crew coming and going, though they didn’t seem to recognize her, she watched one of the docked ships depart, and she met a cat that tried to get food from her, but after a good back scratch realized she didn’t have anything else to offer and walked away, leaving a lonesome Alex staring at the hand she’d used to pet it, wondering how many parasites it had come in contact with.

She immediately went back to the inn to wash her hands and get dinner.

The rest of the evening was spent looking at her Poneglyph folder and her mostly blank notebook. She had carried with her the transcript of the stone and copied some documentation from the library that could prove useful in deciphering it, but she wasn’t making any headway yet. Very little was known about the ancient language, even less was published, and she wasn’t a cryptographer. So far, she had identified what she thought were punctuation signs separating sentences and one of the names in the text.

In her years working in Harlun, she had seen centuries old coins from a currency before belis, and some of them had the legend around the rim written in different languages. Meaning, she knew how to write the name of the island in that ancient language. That was about it. She had a feeling the script wasn’t pure phonetic, either, and that wasn’t something she could attempt to tackle without cross-referencing.

Porta Bella was a nice place to spend a short vacation, sure, but it was impossible to find any books that might help. She had tried. The local bookstore only carried best sellers, and she would have bought that vampire novel that was getting so popular if money wasn’t so tight and she had space in her bag, but as things were, she had to fight frustration and boredom alone.

She had to face the fact that she wasn’t going to do anything useful that night, either. She took off her reading glasses, thinking that trying to sleep sounded like the best idea. Maybe next morning she’d finally have some good luck and find a ship that wouldn’t carry her too far from the Red Line.

❦

Too early for words, and wearing a flannel shirt as a jacket because it had gotten windy, she strode out of the inn with her paper cup and a new challenge. She had thought herself immune to monotony before this, but she had clearly overestimated her brain’s capability to get distracted by anything.

Instead of walking to the docks following the main road, like every morning, she made for the wall again. Stepping on the fallen rock, she reached up with her left hand to the top of the wall and placed the paper cup as far as she could from her, and then she climbed up like the previous day. Well, she tried to, because for some reason early in the morning she didn’t have a lot of hand strength, and she felt a stabbing pain in one of her knees when she stretched her leg to reach the wall.

It took two tries and the fear of having lost her first morning tea, but she got where she wanted.

Cross-legged, she sat on the wall and took sips of her drink while inspecting the docks. No new ships in sight. That time there was someone walking on one of the submarine’s decks, but she couldn’t make out their face, and she didn’t know most of the crew anyway.

The wind had driven all the clouds away, and the dark shadow on the horizon reminded her of how close she had been to getting to the New World before she had to reconsider the entire strategy.

She was about to sigh, but she sensed someone near her vicinity even before she heard the crunch of gravel, so she kept it to herself and looked over her shoulder.

That silly hat was becoming a familiar sight. Trafalgar Law looked up at her from a reasonable distance, having just noticed her. Please don’t get any closer, please—

He changed course and went towards Alex, who didn’t bother to hide how little she appreciated the company less than an hour after waking up.

“Morning walk?” she asked, or grunted, depending on who you asked.

“Yeah,” he replied, annoyingly awake. “What are you doing there?”

“Wasting time.”

Someone with a little more tact, or at least who cared about having it, would have taken a hint and left, but this was not the case. “I want to hear more about Sabaody.”

Oh, she wasn’t nearly awake enough for this, but she made an effort to not be outright rude. “Okay,” she relented. “But you ask me questions, I don’t want to think.”

That was good enough for him, it seemed. With irritating ease, and without having to step on the fallen stone, he boosted himself up against the wall and climbed it in a matter of seconds.

Something caught his attention when he looked up, and he stood up on the stone like the concepts of acrophobia and losing one’s balance were but a faraway ping in his radar. Alex’s mood was souring by the second, granted, a likely thing to happen at that hour. It wasn’t personal.

“Is that…?”

She turned to look in the same direction he was.

“Yeah. Red Line.”

“I didn’t think it was so close.”

“It’s a few days away still. It’s just that big.” She thought of the times she’d been at the base. It was impossible to see the top from its bottom. And, considering what lay up there, perhaps it was for the better. “You saw it from the other side, I guess?” North Blue was adjacent to the New World. In a sense, both of them were from the same side of the Line. How weird to think that they had anything in common.

“Yeah. We entered the Grand Line through Reverse Mountain.”

Expected, but incomprehensible to her unless he had a death wish. “Ships sink there every day. What do you want so bad that you’d risk that?”

“Wasn’t I the one asking the questions?” he shot back.

She gave him a deadpan look, then looked at the cup between her hands. It wasn’t doing much to drive away the numbness of her fingers. How many people had gone out to sea since the Great Age of Piracy began and failed because they bit more than they could chew? And they weren’t the only ones dying. For every decent man that got a ship and called himself a captain, there were ten whose only interest was pillaging villages and getting rich. Was that massive chain reaction what Gold Roger had intended with its final speech? Had it been a final fuck you to world order, or was there something else behind it?

She had contradicting thoughts about it. Roger’s last words had unarguably made the world worse, but…

Well.

The guy had been a badass. Even she wasn’t immune to seeing that. With every new pirate crew that sailed to Reverse Mountain to test its fortune, he kept proving how much bigger than life he had been. Twenty years down the line, he had become as much of a legend as the tales of gods from islands in the sky. The kind of legacy a regular person only dreams of having.

He said, I will never die.

He had been more right than he knew.

She looked at Trafalgar with renewed curiosity. “Are you trying to become Pirate King too?”

He didn’t give a clear answer, despite how easy of a question it was. “What if I am?”

It wasn’t a no. A straight yes would get many pirates laughed out of town even in a place like the Grand Line. There wasn’t a lot of room for romantic ideas of piracy when civilians lived in fear of black flags showing up one day at the port and taking away everything they had.

“Just curious.” She wasn’t feeling articulate enough to explain where she was going to herself, much less him. “Nothing wrong with dreaming big.”

As soon as the words left her mouth, she felt like she had called herself out. Where was she going? After Sabaody, after crossing the Red Line, after getting to her hometown? Those were only checkpoints. But where was her purpose? Inside the bag she had in her room at the inn, or somewhere else?

An awkward silence stretched along with the horizon. For some reason, he decided not to press her for answers and sat down. A small mercy for Alex’s neck.

“After the Log Pose sets, it will point to Fishman Island. How do we get to Sabaody first?”

It was a relief to be able to give an answer she didn’t have to think about. “It should be visible when you’re close enough to the Red Line. It looks like a random cluster of trees popped up in the middle of the ocean.”

“That’s it? Is it safe to dock anywhere?”

“Mostly. The archipelago is made up of 80 groves. 60 to 69 house a Marine garrison, and that’s where the ferries to Marineford and Mary Geoise leave from, so you don’t want to be there. Other than that…” She had to strain to remember the range of numbers. “20 to 29 is the only lawless area open to sea, so you know Marines won’t go there, but since no one’s keeping watch, the competition might try to sabotage you. I don’t know, I never had to worry about that sort of thing.”

“I’m not afraid of other crews,” he said with that devil may care attitude that got pirates killed left and right. “We haven’t come this far without knowing how to defend our ship.”

She wasn’t going to argue his point. “I’m just saying what I know. You do you.” But she took note to keep her opinions to herself, lest he had the urge to express how full of himself he was again.

He looked at her like he was trying to figure out what sort of hidden meaning her noncommittal response held, but little did he know that behind the sleepy façade her prevailing thought was it’s too early for this shit.

“You said you spent some time in the archipelago.” It wasn’t worded like a question, but it was a way to probe for info. She supposed that she would have wanted to know the credentials of her sources, had she been in his position.

She hummed. “I lived there a few years.”

Taking a sip from the cup, she returned her attention towards the outline in the horizon. It had been a constant part of the scenery back then, always peeking out from behind the trees and buildings of the groves closest to the shore. A grim reminder, on one hand, of those who lived above the peasants, but at the same time, Sabaody had been… fun. There was always something happening. Moderately dangerous, but always entertaining. She had forgotten how that felt after the years of routine in Duster Town.

A question brought her out of her thoughts. “Are you from this area?”

“Oh, no,” she said, surprised that he had even entertained the idea. “No, I got a scholarship to study in one of the World Government’s academies. I’m from the other side of the Red Line.”

“From the New World?” He said with surprise, and mulled over this new piece of information until it fit satisfactorily in whatever picture of her he had constructed in his mind. “So that’s where the accent’s from.”

It was unexpected comment after unexpected comment. “Excuse me?” she replied in an incredulous tone. “You are the one with a heavy accent.”

Now it was him who got caught off guard. “That’s not true,” he retorted. He looked like he was trying to determine if she was pulling his leg.

“Yes it is,” she insisted. “Everybody has an accent. You and your crew have that typical northern one that sounds like you’re about to shank the person you’re saying hello to.”

For a moment, she thought he had offended him to the point of silence. Just for a moment, because he didn’t take long to counter with, “You sound like you’re trying to whisper through a megaphone.”

She snorted with laughter as soon as the words sunk in. It was true that she spoke in a low voice most of the time. “If that isn’t the best description of Dressrosan I’ve heard—”

She felt an immediate change in atmosphere, like an electric current shooting through the air, and shut up as a precaution.

Trafalgar has tensed up all of a sudden and was staring at her like she had grown a second head, like she was trying to set her on fire with a glare, or both. “What did you say?”

She found herself tensing up in return, even though she didn’t know what she had done. But when a dangerous guy scowled at you like that, survival instincts kicked in. Goodbye sleepiness, and welcome life danger. “Um… Dressrosan?” She eyed him warily. “My mother tongue?”

His eyes grew wider, but other than that, his expression didn’t change much. “You’re from Dressrosa?”

She suddenly understood. It wasn’t the first time she got odd reactions when she said where she was from, but it had been a while. “Oh, right.” She sighed. “You’ve heard of the whole Doflamingo thing.”

Or… maybe she was wrong. He seemed a little out of it, like he was looking past her at… who knew what was in his head.

After a few seconds without a reply, she deemed it safe to speak. “Did I say anything wrong?”

“…No. I was just surprised.” After that, he seemed to go back to normal, though his voice sounded a little strained. He was still tense. “It’s a long way there.”

Suspicious. Did he know someone from there? “It’s not so much the distance as having the Red Line in the way. Getting permission to cross it takes time.” And she figured that she had run out of it.

“How’s the country?” He asked in a way that tried to sound casual, and maybe, maybe would have worked if he hadn’t made clear already that he had a particular interest in it. “Being ruled by pirates and all.”

She made a disgruntled sound. She had signed up to answer questions about the Sabaody Archipelago, not Dressrosa. There was a reason why she hadn’t been home in ages. “It’s doing fine. Better than fine, in fact. Economy is booming. People are happy.” She delivered each sentence in a quick, clipped tone. “It pisses me off.”

“Why?”

Because she always had to be the odd one out, she thought. And this guy wasn’t getting the message that she didn’t want to talk about it. “Doflamingo doesn’t deserve that kind of credit. He and his crew should go back to the hole they crawled out of.”

He huffed. “North Blue’s had enough of him already.”

Animosity was dripping from his words, and that made her feel a little less displeased and a lot more interested in what he had to say. He could’ve seen firsthand the repercussions of Doflamingo’s actions there.

“That’s true.” She didn’t know much about the specifics, but there was a reason the North Blue was considered the most dangerous out of the four cardinal seas. “I guess he did a number there before he moved onto the Grand Line.”

“You don’t sound very fond of him either.”

Look at that, a flat out admission of having feelings about someone.

“He’s scum,” she said with more venom than she had meant to. “He dethroned the king only to take over himself, reinstated gladiator fights to death, and he has a trafficking empire. The Human Auctioning House in Sabaody displays his Jolly Roger openly. But he’s a Warlord. As long as money keeps flowing and the Celestial Dragons can buy new pets, nobody seems to care.”

“And you do? You say your country’s doing well.”

She didn’t know whether to reply honestly or not. He was trying to dig deeper than she was comfortable with answering, but she was on a roll already. “Dressrosa used to be a very poor country. I’m not blaming the people who have a better life now, but I don’t think you can build anything stable from corruption. Someone will topple Doflamingo one day, and the country will go down with him.” Her tone was increasingly becoming more determined. “And when the time comes, I hope they get rid of kings once and for all.”

“You lost me at that last part.”

“Monarchy is an obsolete form of government. How’s the world going to get rid of the Celestial Dragons if we can’t even get rid of the pests at home?”

He stared at her blankly, and that was when she realized she had talked too much and looked away from him. Ah, to be a life form capable of fusing with granite and dying in the spot…

She heard a short, muffled laugh, and glanced at him. Great, a pirate making fun of her was exactly what she needed to start her day.

“Can’t say I took you for an anarchist.” He was smirking.

“What part of ‘fuck the government’ was unclear?” she replied, still avoiding to look at him. “The more time you spend near Mary Geoise, the more you realize everything has to burn down. Then there are the Marines.” A lost cause. “It’s even their combined fault that I’m stuck here.”

“What do you mean?” He sounded relaxed again. It was like he hadn’t been acting like a weirdo through the entire conversation about Dressrosa. “Aren’t you just waiting for a ship?”

She took a long breath in preparation to give the same explanation she’d been getting every time she spoke to a newly arrived sailor. “Kidnapping crews are infesting the waters ahead. Normal ships don’t want to go near Sabaody because there’s going to be a human auction next week. Marines aren’t helping because the government benefits from the slave trade, and I assume the Enies Lobby debacle has hit them hard. I already told Bepo you don’t have to worry about it, though. They only attack pirates if they think they’re weaklings.” And trying to change the subject to something that didn’t force her to wallow in her misery, she asked, “How much was it already, Mr. Supernova?”

He looked awfully satisfied with his title. “It’s not Trafalgar anymore?”

“I’ve always liked stars.” And speaking of Bepo, she remembered something from their conversation the day before. “By the way, I don’t think I introduced myself. I’m—”

“Bepo told me. I like Librarian-ya better.”

She had an urge to fling what was left of her tea at him, but she held back at the expense of looking away and letting a strained smile show. Not worth the loss of beverage. It wasn’t going to stop him from being an early morning smartass.

The silence that ensued this time didn’t feel as uncomfortable as before, but that bar was so low, it might as well have been underground.

#degrees of separation #tried to post this draft from mobile and the formatting imploded #why is tumblr so

[unholyhelbig]

Bechloe Prompt- Chloe's life has been slowly been falling apart, so she decides to take a month off to get her life together. Renting a cabin in the middle of the woods for a get a way from it all, she's surprised to hear that she'll have a roommate due to a mistake in the paperwork. While its only for the month and meeting someone new is great, her roommate, Beca, also has her own personal reasons and secrets to be there too.

Read on AO3 

Title: A Hallmark Ending 

Ship: Beca Mitchell/ Chloe Beale 

By the time the sky faded to lilac, Chloe Beale felt drunk on her own confidence. Her suitcase plowing along on the gravel path towards a quaint little cabin on the edge of a lake. A lake her father used to bring her to when it was just the two of them- before he got remarried and they would just sit in a small fishing boat in the utter silence. Splitting a peanut butter sandwich and sharing in the quiet until a fish sunk its lips around a metal hook.

Those were simpler times. Times when the world didn’t get a chance to dig its steel-toed boot right under her ribs and flex its sickly bones in her side. Like when her publisher could pull out of a book deal last minute, leaving the manuscript untouched and dusty on top of her bookcase. When she had to cave and take her old job back at a department store in the perfume department.  When her car sputtered to a final stop seven blocks from her driveway.

Chloe decided that coming here was a good idea.

Getting back to her roots on the lake in a cabin that was tiny and secluded. It was only a short trip, a month away from work that her pension could cover if she timed it exactly right (and it was Chloe, so she had). A place where she could breathe in the fresh mountain air and clear her mind of everything that made it so hard to write in the city.

The cabin was tiny, a one-bedroom with a large deck around the back and a string of fairy lights that radiated once the sun ducked down behind the horizon completely. A canopy of stars and a cup of hot cocoa made her pick up her pace. There was an old beat-up truck out front, probably the landlord doing one more sweep of the place before leaving for the next thirty days.

Chloe Beale was confident because she had done this all by herself. Had decided to pull herself away from work, and hand rented a cabin similar to her childhood one- all on her own. All without the help of some greasy mechanic who overcharged her, or a terrible boss who would walk her through how to ring up every purchase.

She heard it then; the rhythmic splitting of wood, and a couple of soft grunts coming from the side of the cabin. The one facing a large row of pine trees that gave way to an extensive forest filled with creatures and plants of all shapes and sizes.

A woman- shorter by about two inches from where Chloe was standing lifted a large shining ax above her defined shoulders. Chloe stopped at the edge of the grass. She brought the sharpened edge into the center of the log, splitting it into three even pieces. It sounded like a bowling ball hitting the just the right pins before a long sweeper came and knocked down the rest.

Her brunette hair was tied into a messy bun and sweat coated strands fell into midnight eyes, completely focused on the task at hand. She had headphones in and a focused look on her face. She had sweat through her white t-shirt, dirtied with mud.

“Excuse me,” Chloe waved meekly, trying to get the woman’s attention. She tried once more “Excuse me!”

The stranger drew in a bout of air and stopped, the axe in mid-air. It glinted off the orange sun. Chloe couldn’t tell if she had worked her features into annoyance or if she generally looked like that on a normal basis. Her earbuds hung around her shoulders now, eyes sweeping over Chloe’s figure.

“Sorry, I didn’t expect anyone else to be out here.” She panted.

Chloe nodded solemnly “Are you the handyman around here?”

The stranger laughed then, light and airy and done with her entire body. She let the ax drop to her side, taking in the appearance of Chloe all together. Her fingers were neatly painted, and she wore a nice blouse. She had barely even broken a sweat.

“No, kitten, I’m renting out the place.”

“I- that’s impossible.” Chloe huffed out, the back of her neck burned. “I paid the landlord for the rest of the month. Cabin 7A.”

“Yeah, me too, and I got here first, so it looks like you’ll have to find other arrangements.”

Chloe tried to keep her composure, tried to swallow that anger down but that stupid smirking face of this… this heathen was biting back at her like a mosquito just looking to tap a vein. She reached down and piled a few pieces of chopped wood into her grasp, walking towards the front of the cabin.

“It took an entire day to get up here and I refuse to go back!” Chloe followed her, pulling that suitcase after her like a shadow.

“You’re more than welcome to stay outside if you’d like. I won’t call the sheriff on you Kitten, promise.”

She kicked open the screen door with her booted foot and set the wood next to the large stone fireplace. Everything was just like the brochure- the nice leather couches and gorgeous wood finish. There was a large set of stairs leading up to a loft and the one-bedroom the place had to offer. A moose head that Chloe could do without was situated right near the second landing, staring blankly at her.

The stranger wiped her hands down her jeans, leaving streaky marks as she let out a sigh and faced Chloe, quirking a brow at the woman who rested in the doorway. Waiting for an invitation in, one that she wasn’t going to get.

“Look, Red, I’ll call the landlord right now. We’ll get it situated.”

Chloe seemed to be happy enough with that answer as she took the last dastardly step into the place and set her suitcase by the door. She ran her fingers against the furniture, feeling the cool leather and the grooved wood as the woman called. She could hear the muffled conversation from the kitchen but not well enough.

She didn’t know where the sudden change of heart came from- but she didn’t question it. Maybe it was the deep-rooted need for both of them to not share a cabin for the next month. Especially one that only came equipped with one bedroom and not a very big bathroom. Chloe should have booked a trip to Cabo, but instead, she traded the luxury for childhood memories.

“Well, bad news and good news.” She exited the kitchen, shutting the phone off with a muted beep. “We are double-booked for the month.”

Chloe took a steady breath “And the good news?”

“You’re not the one who fucked it all up- they are.” She crossed her arms over her chest and moved that terribly cold stare from Chloe’s feet all the way to her own eyes. “But… I’ll take the couch for the first week.”

“You think I’m staying here with you?” She asked.

“Well Kitten I don’t see much of another choice. Unless you want to brave the road back to town, and I don’t see much sense in trying. There’s a big storm coming. Don’t you watch the news?”

No, she hadn’t. But she could feel the electricity sparking in the air the second she stepped off the bus at the base of the long drive. Large oak trees were swaying in the hot slight breeze, their leaves overturned to display the meek belly of green. A sign that the tides were turning and that it was best to stock up on bread, milk, and evidently firewood, that would be too soaked to ignite if she had waited any longer.

Chloe conceded and let the screen door slide shut behind her before she flopped down on the nearest leather couch. How was she supposed to get any writing done now?

“Dinner’s ready, Red.” The stranger spoke from the doorway, and Chloe’s stomach clenched. The sun had pulled behind the base of the water hours ago and the wind had picked up speed as it yowled like a wounded animal. Chloe had pooled herself at the end of the sofa, a fire warming the side of her face as she watched the flames dance across the pages of the nearest book she had pilfered.

She didn’t want to eat the stranger’s food- didn’t’ want to admit that the stew she had been cooking for the last five hours actually smelled good. It’s broth salty and contrasting to large chunks of sautéed meat and potato. But her stomach growled and tightened and she couldn’t focus on Rudyard Kipling’s words anymore.

“I promise I didn’t slip any arsenic in here.” The stranger continued “Though, I would love to have this place all to myself.”

Chloe scoffed but peeled back the blanket draped over her legs and made her way to the kitchen. It was smaller than she remembered, or maybe she was just the small one and it was always a one-lane room that forced the two of them closer together than she ever wanted to be. The woman ladled a good helping into two bowls and slid one across the island, passing Chloe a spoon.

She waited until the first bite was taken, steamy broth warming her cheeks as she watched the woman chew triumphantly. Refusing to break eye contact. “See, no poison Kitten.”

“I have a name, you know.”

“I haven’t had the pleasure of coming by it.”

The woman glared “Chloe.”

She shoved the spoon in her mouth then, taking in the sudden burst of flavor that washed over her taste buds. Chloe let the moan escape her throat without even thinking, chewing thoughtfully before getting a good look at the cocky smile that the stranger had to offer. Degrading.

“Good right? It was my mother’s recipe- but I’ve tweaked it a little.”

Chloe nodded slowly and dipped the spoon back into the bowl for another taste. “You haven’t told me your name.”

“Beca Mitchell.”

Beca Mitchell- seemed familiar in a way of passing that Chloe couldn’t quite pinpoint yet. Something she could recognize in passing. Skimming the magazines at checkout, recalling that one random fact about how fast a jellyfish could swim, or the size of an average elephant foot. She would smile at the cashier and replace the small pad of paper instead of putting it on the black belt, just like the one in front of her did, and the one behind her as well.

“I used to come up here with my father.” Chloe said after the silence “That’s the only reason I’m here. To clear my head, get some clarity for my new book- and trust me this is less than ideal for all of us.”

“Mm, you’re a writer?”

Beca didn’t’ offer up her own reason for isolating herself in a cabin for upwards of a month, though Chloe could admit that she had some questions herself. Figured that if she put her reason out on the clothesline to dangle in the wind- then maybe the stranger would follow suit. Preferably before she had to fall asleep in the same house as her.

Chloe took another bite of the stew and chewed slowly “I’d like to call myself one, yes. This year has been a little rough, the business side of things. But I’ve had my fair share of New York Times Best Sellers.”

Beca lifted her eyebrows and set her mostly empty bowl in the metal sink. “That sounds like more than a hobby, Chloe. Impressive.”

“What about you, then?” Chloe leaned forward, running her fingers over the spoon. “What brings you up to the beautiful seclusion of the forest?”

She chuckled at that, leaning both of her palms against the edge of the sink. She watched Chloe with accuracy, who watched her right back. Waiting for an answer- one that was better than a simple ‘to escape’. That she was used to giving people.

“I’m a chef. I was a chef until the restaurant I worked at burned down. They’re trying to rebuild, offered me another contract and everything.” She worked out slowly “I have it with me and I don’t know if I’m ready to sign it yet. Hence the isolation. I needed to figure things out.”

“If your stew is telling of the rest of your food, then I think you should. What’s stopping you?”

Beca’s cheeks heated from the compliment, usually something written in the newspaper or given through tight-lipped smiles of those around her. Those who cared too much about the parties and the diamonds that were around their necks and bound to their wrists.

“The luxury of a life like that,” She started, frowning down at the intricate patterns on the granite countertop. “Is overwhelming to every sense you can possibly possess. You have the people who are rich enough to act the way that they do, and those who are trying hard to get to the level that everyone else around them is at.”

“And you’re neither?”

“I’m neither.” Beca let out a small sigh “I just think that life like that- life that needs to be bathed in luxury, and fancy cuisine… I started out making cheesesteaks in a small restaurant by the beach. And I was content.”

Chloe nodded thoughtfully “I was too. Writing for the local paper, you know? Covering little stories about local businesses and bake sales. All of it was simple and beautiful.”

“What’s stopping you from going back?”

“Recognition, mostly. After I wrote that first book- I don’t know. It gained me a lot of attention, a contract that was broken because I have writer’s block. The worst type of writer’s block that isn’t spurred by a lack of inspiration. It’s the kind that has everything to do with pressure. With a lack of enjoyment.”

Beca didn’t say anything, then. She turned to face away from Chloe and started to rummage through the cabinets, not caring much for order. She produced a bottle of half-finished white wine and two mismatched mugs that had different states printed on the side.

“What are you doing?” Chloe chuckled.

“Sounds like both of us are fucked. And the only thing people who are this lost in life can do is drink.”

“That sounds like the start of a lot of my problems, not the end of them.”

Beca unscrewed the metal top, pouring a generous amount into both glasses before she shoved one across the counter to the young writer. “Yeah, well, we might as well make some use of the time we have up here. Work out what we’re going to do. Who knows, maybe you’ll find some weird type of inspiration in the… near solitude.”

Chloe grasped the baby blue mug and took even sips of the wine. It was sour and tasted flat but made her stomach feel fuzzy all the same. She watched as the chef gathered up the dishes and went to wash them in the sink. Hair falling into dark eyes and a tune hummed on her lips. Chloe thought, for just a moment, that maybe she had found inspiration somewhere.

#Beca Mitchell #Chloe Beale #Bechloe #Bechloe fanfiction #request

[just-an-awesome-hufflepuff]

Hi!!!! I saw you were doing matches with fandoms. Can I have one with marvel, one with Harry Potter and one with star wars? Ok so I'm into guys, a middle ground between introverts and extrovert. I'm 5'7, I love reading and writing, music is in my every day, and I absolutely adore animals. I'm Terrible at sports, I am really really honest (but not in teb assholy way), I value honesty alot. I believe in second chances and I'm extremely clumsy, very sarcastic, random & enjoy joking around.

Sorry that this took so long! I hope you like all of your match-ups

I was kind of torn for the Harry Potter one, but I think it ended up being the right choice. Sorry if you don’t agree with it though.

Thank you so much for requesting from me!

And now for your match ups!

For Harry Potter I ship you with…

Neville Longbottom!

Neville would first notice you for your fierce honesty

He loved that you could be so open and truthful

You first met in care of magical creatures

He was amazed with how calm you were around the animals, creatures that terrified him

Hagrid would pair you two up for a task, hoping that you could help Neville get over his fears

It doesn’t help though because he spends the whole lesson just staring at you

The next time he saw you was in the library

You were reading by the window

Neville wanted to talk to you, but couldn’t work up the courage to do so

So he just sat down a few seats away from you and read instead

That started happening a lot

You would find yourselves reading together in silence

Eventually after a couple of weeks, you finally started talking to each other

Sharing and recommending books and talking about different plants and animals

You asked him out, because he was too shy to do so

You went to the yule ball together.

You were kind of nervous about dancing because you were both pretty clumsy but Neville had been practicing so it went smoothly

But after a while you guys went to sit out in the courtyard and just talk and look at the stars

You would have a very soft relationship

You would go on dates to hogsmeade and get a heap of candy from Honeydukes and sit outside and eat it

Also a lot of time spent in the library

It was kind of your designated spot, if one of you couldn’t find the other, it was guaranteed that you would be there

Neville wasn’t much into PDA, but usually when you two were alone he would always be holding your hand

He loved that you could get along with all of his friends because of your sarcastic nature, but also that you were happy to just spend time alone together

Basically he loved everything about you, and was constantly amazed that he got so lucky

For Star Wars, I ship you with…

Poe Dameron!

He too would love you for your honesty but also your sarcastic nature

He loves that you’re not afraid to tell people to truth

You would be a healer at the resistance base, and you would first meet after a battle, when Poe was dragged into the health ward with a lot of scrapes and scratches

He was drifting in and out of consciousness, when he opened his eyes and the first thing he saw were your dark brown eyes

And then he heard your quips about how stupid he must have been to get all of these wounds

He would immediately fall in love

Suddenly wherever you went, Poe was there, complimenting something about your appearance

And he loved it when you would shoot him down with another sarcastic comment

But the best part was when he was walking away he would always see your beautiful smile out of the corner of his eye, giving him hope

Eventually after another resistance battle, he would come into the ward with pretty bad injuries.

And once again, hear your voice talking about how stupid he would have to be to get these injuries in a x-wing fight (“you’re protected by 15 sheets of metal how do you get so many cuts?”)

But this time there was a small tone of worry in your voice

“Is that a hint of concern I hear Y/N? Are you actually worried?”

After a little more teasing, you would go off at him talking about how of course you were worried because these were serious injuries and you liked him and didn’t want to see him hurt

And his eyes would just go wide because in all your panic you just admitted that you liked him too

And he would just pull himself up (which hurt a lot more than he thought it would. Damn injuries) and kissed you right then and there.

He would always take you for flights in his x-wing, taking you to different planets where you could see brand new creatures and animals you wouldn’t usually find at the rebels base

And he loved it when your eyes would light up when you saw the different species

Although more often than not, your dates would consist of you two just going down to the local cantena to listen to the bands play and eat some good food.

General Organa would adore you, because you matched Poe so well, but also managed to keep him in check

After missions, he would always sneak up from behind you and pick you up, spinning you around

You two would basically have the cutest relationship, always playing around together and having the best time.

For Marvel, I ship you with…

Tony Stark!

You and Tony would definitely be the most adorable couple around

You would have the best dynamic

Always including sarcastic remarks when you would talk to each other

Tony loved that you could be honest with him, and he often relied on your truthfulness when he wasn’t sure if his actions were good or bad

You were never afraid to call him out if he did the wrong thing, and he was so thankful for your guidance

You would spend all of your time in the lab together, after all neither of you enjoyed the sports and physical activities that the other avengers always seemed ready to take part in

Whenever someone passed the lab you two would be blasting music at full volume, yelling along with the lyrics

Every day was a dance party

You would get along really well with all of the other avengers, especially Peter who would always laugh when you insulted Tony in one way or another

Even though you two had a fair bit of banter, he was always respectful and you both knew when to drop the sarcastic act and be soft with one another, usually after a mission or one of Tony’s nightmares

He loves that you push him to be his best self

There aren’t many animals in New York city, so Tony buys a place outside the city by a lake in a forest so you can hear birds every morning and see the different animals who stop by the lake for a drink

On weekends you two would head out to that cabin and eat dinner out on the deck as the sunset turned the lake into beautiful oranges and pinks

Always looking out for each other and each other’s needs and basically making everyone jealous of the perfect relationship you have

This one was kind of a long one

Hope you liked it darling 💙

#match ups #harry potter match ups #marvel match ups #star wars match ups #neville longbottom #poe dameron #tony stark #neville longbottom x reader #poe dameron x reader #tony stark x reader

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

Humans are Space Orcs, “Smell and Memories.”

This went a bit longer than I intended, but I made this based on a request from the discord server. I hope this is what everyone was looking for, and have a great day 

Adam wasn’t sure what had woken him up; by all rights, he certainly shouldn’t have been awake at all. He was so…. Comfortable. Maybe that's what it was? The beds at the academy weren’t exactly first rate, and right at this moment he felt as if he was floating on top of a cloud.

Something wasn’t right about that.

He probably should have fallen back to sleep instead of thinking about it, but the more time he spent thinking the more awake he became, until he noticed something else, and that was the quiet humming of some sort of distant generator.

That wasn’t right either, the academy didn't have a generator anywhere near the barracks. He might have expected to hear the distant roaring of engines, or even the sound of marching footsteps, but not a generator.

He could feel it vibrating below him, a soft thrumm that rolled up from the floor and into his body.

He cracked an eye, and was immediately confused at what he saw.

It was like staring into an abstract painting where the brain fights to find something familiar, and seems to only just fail. 

He lurched upright, staring around the room in confusion.

It took a few minutes, but eventually the room coalesced around him.

And what he saw didn’t make any sense. The bed he sat in was…. Large queen if not king size, with soft grey sheets and a blanket…. Something he would never have been allowed at the academy. There was a TV and plenty of his things scattered miscellaneously around the room.

Turning to the left, he froze eyes wide…. On the massive window and the star field beyond.

What was that! 

It had to be some sort of projection! Because the only other option was that he was in space!

But no, that wasn’t right.

He had never been to space, not yet anyway. He wasn’t skilled enough at flying to take one of the darkfires, and even if that was the case, it didn’t make sense…. This was a large ship.

He turned himself sideways on the bed and went to stand slowly. It was only too late that he realized something was wrong, and he went crashing to the floor. The sudden fall was jarring, and unexpected, but what was worse….

Looking back at his body he realised, from about mid thigh down, he was missing a leg!

Sudden panic.

He crawled gasping back against the wall staring down at the missing limb, his hands trembling over the stump of where his right leg should have been..

WHere was he!

WHat had happened to him!

WHere was his leg!

Movement across the room, and he jerked violently back as a shape came trotting around the side of the bed, only relaxing when he realised it was a dog. The German shepherd walked up to him without hesitation sitting down at his side before pressing her head against his chest.

Voice still shaky he reached out and rubbed his hands through her fur, “h...hi…..I…. what’s your name?” He held out his hand to look down at her collar, but the tags didn’t have the name on them.

She lifted her head to look him in the face licking at him with her squishy pink tongue.

He smiled despite his inner panic.

Instead of walking away though, she pressed closer, forcing him to pet her until the panic slowly died away. As if on cue, she stepped back and trotted away, returning a moment later with something in her mouth dragging over the floor, dropping it into his lap.

He stared at it in confusion for a moment.

It looked like a prosthetic leg….. but …. wrong .

He tapped his finger against the blue outer layer, which felt like….. Nothing he had ever touched. And then the two toes at the end of the foot…. Like no animal he had ever seen.

“What is this?”

His own voice startled him, and he rested a hand against his chest.

Had his voice gotten… deeper?

The dog nosed his hand, and with a little fiddling, he was able to reach down and socket the leg into place. Not seconds after it had happened, he heard a soft whirring noise, and a blast of sensation rolled up from the fake leg. 

He could feel….

Everything.

It was honestly a relief, and he was finally able to wobble to his feet, looking around the room with wide eyes reaching out his fingers to touch the viewing screen. He assumed it was some sort of projection on glass, but still it looked pretty convincing, and pretty cool.

It would have been better if he knew where he was, whose bed that was, and whose dog this belonged to.

He limped awkwardly over to the mirror on the other side of the room. The leg felt weird, and he couldn't help but walk funny on it.

When he reached the mirror, he nearly staggered back in shock.

That wasn’t his face!

Or more accurately, it WAS his face, but….. older .

And then he got a good look at his right eye….. A robotic eye.

He yelped and scrambled back his hand to his face. He could feel the eye inside his head as he bumped into the foot of the bed and pitched backwards into a sitting position. For one horrible moment he wondered if his entire body had been replaced with robotic parts, but a test of his right arm proved that was not the case.

He sighed in relief still a bit wobbly.

He took another good look at the room. All this stuff looked like things he would own. Some of it he even recognized, but other bits of it, not so much.

He walked over to the wardrobe, and when he opened it, he found a pristine grey….. Admiral’s uniform.

He stepped back.

Yes this was certainly not his.

Somehow he had woken up in an Admiral’s room!

He was so screwed.

He looked down at himself. Sneaking out in a T shirt and boxers was not going to do it though, so he quickly shuffled through the closet coming up with a pair of grey BDUs pulling off the little velcro star on the shoulder. It’s a good thing this Admiral guy was almost exactly his size. 

Hopefully no one would notice and he would be able to sneak out.

He turned around and patted the admiral’s dog on the head, “Good girl” He said before standing up and reaching for the door.

It opened with a hiss, and he stepped out into the hallway rather sneakily. Closing the door quietly.

“Good morning, Admiral!”

He nearly leaped out of his boots and went blasting into the ceiling. He turned around hand to his chest in shock and surprise, breathing hard. The sharp 

British accent belonged to a tall woman with dark hair pulled up into a tight bun, and a pristine grey uniform, holding a  clipboard.

She didn’t seem surprised to see him.

He straightened himself up.

Just act natural, “Good morning….you….person.”

She blinked at him, “is everything alright, Admiral?”

Uh…. what?

He was a cadet, not an admiral. How was it that this person seemed to recognize him.

And how did he end up in an Admiral’s quarters.

There were a few options, most of them too outlandish to consider, one of them involving the random chance of hooking up with a superior officer who happened to look exactly like him, and being so drunk he lost all his memories about the encounter form the night before.

That didn’t seem right.

Even drunk he couldn’t imagine that scenario.

And if it was what had happened, than this admiral apparently had a thing for people who looked exactly like him…. Which was weird…. No, there had to be another explanation.

He just had to act…. Natural.

He straightened himself up, “Yes uh…. Of course… everything is alright.”

He just had to act more…. admiral -ish.

The lieutenant tilted her head at him, eyes narrowing in confusion.  She suspected him already?

Great.

But if she did suspect him, she didn’t say anything and let him out down the hallway. Teeth gritted, he followed after her back straight walking how he thought admirals should walk, though the weird feel of the prosthetic leg surely wasn’t helping.

They began to pass others in the hallway, and he assumed he would be recognized immediately, but they just waved and saluted.

“Morning Admiral.”

“Morning Adam.”

“Morning Sir.”

Adam? 

They knew his name?

He just smiled vaguely. The men frowned, but he passed y feeling their eyes on him as he made his way down the hall.

WHat was this place?”

He wanted to ask but knew that would be a dead give away.

He turned the corner as he was led into an elevator and took a short ride up into…. Something awesome.

It was like star trek…. Or or star wars or something. Or like walking onto the command deck at NASA: a massive circular room with dozens of seats, all manned by a uniformed officer, speaking to each other quickly and passing holo projections back and forth, all under the light of a massive star field, which could be seen out the front viewing screen.

And then, the quintessential captain’s chair in the center, sitting on a pedestal high above the rest.

He stood with his mouth open.

The lieutenant waited.

He looked at her, and she looked at him.

What now?

“Sir, morning diagnostics?” she motioned towards the chair.

He was about to motion to himself in surprise, but then stopped, “Oh… yeah yes of course…. Diagnostics, how could I forget.” He smiled awkwardly earning another strange look from the lieutenant as he walked over, and paused before the chair.

How could he say no to an opportunity like this.

He slid into place and took a deep breath.

This was so cool!

Now for…. diagnostics ?

He stared at the controls.

And recognized…. nothing .

Awkwardly, he reached out a hand to make it look like maybe he was doing something, but he wasn’t. He had had dreams like this before, but this was way way worse.

He had to get out of here.

He stood.

“I just remembered I forgot…. To do a thing.”

The Lieutenant stared at him in consternation as he walked past her and back into the elevator, closing the door quickly before she could follow him. The elevator began its descent.

Ok, what did he know? He was missing a leg and an eye, everyone here thought he was an admiral…. And he was…. Where?

The door before him opened up and he stepped out into the hall. Okay, he just had to find a door out of here.

He took one more step.

“Hey Adam, have you seen Sunny.”

“Er, no I.” he turned and froze on the spot like a block of ice, as the massive alien leaned its head down to look at him.

Frozen, hands out to his sides, he stared up at the creature mouth open at the massive, hulking shape.

Two toed feet, bipedal, with four pairs of arms, a bird-ish head and bright golden eyes.

An ALIEN!

That was an alien!

One of his legs began to tremble, either in excitement or fear he did not know.

This was it, this all made sense now! He had been abducted by aliens, and thrown into the matrix into a scenario that would keep him complacent while they used his body for probing and scientific purposes.

The alien tilted its head, “Adam, are you ok.

“Fine.” he squeaked “I have to go!”

And then he turned and ran. It wasn’t  a graceful run, and it certainly wasn’t being nonchalant, but to be fair, he was panicking! He had been abducted by aliens, he was sure of it, there was no other explanation for what was going on.

He skidded around a corner and pitched himself right into a wall, falling flat on his side, not used to the prosthetic leg. People stared at him as he scrambled to his feet and continued running, trying to find the best nearest hiding spot.

He eventually found something down in a dark maintenance tunnel, shoving himself into a vent or crevice next to a pipe where he could hyperventilate in peace.

Was that alien really cool, yes.

Was he scared out of his mind, yes.

Did he know what to do, no.

Was hiding here especially manly?... that could be debated at a later date.

He sat there brooding in the dark for a long moment until he heard footsteps coming up the hallway.

“Adam…. Adam are you in here.” 

He threw a hand over his mouth, eyes wide, breathing softly.

“Adam, hey is everything alright, I brought waffles.” He frowned. What the hello did that mean.

He figured it out with the wet snout poked it’s way into his hole and prodded him with her nose.

Shit

The german shepherd, of course. No wonder they had found him.

“Adam, are you ok.”

He scooted further into the hole as she shadow passed over his hiding spot, not that it was much of one any more. A foot stepped into place before him…. Bright blue, and with two toes.

Just like his prosthetic leg.

He yelped, then placed a hand over his mouth watching as the alien knelt before the little opening, staring in at him.

He wanted to say she looked….

Concerned.

Something about her was almost.

Familiar.

“Adam, what’s wrong.”

The dog scooted up next to him and rested her head against his chest.

More footsteps up the hall, and the alien stepped back. He sat there in the darkness, arms around the dog. What was happening! He had been found.

“What’s going on, Sunny.”

“I don’t know. I think he might be having an attack. Someone get Conn.”

Footsteps faded into the distance.

An attack?”

The alien knelt before the door again, reaching inside with her four fingered hand.

He stared at it.

She rested a hand on his leg, sending a strange burst of tingling bubbles up into his body, and for a moment he felt…

He recoiled from her in shock at himself.

She moved back.

“Krill, Dr Adric, thank spirits you’re here?”

“Whats wrong?’ 

“I think he’s having some sort of episode.”

“Well I am a medical doctor, there is not much that I can do here. Dr. Adric, this might be your area of expertise.”

The voices continued, “I'd suggest everyone step back then. Crowding is only going to make it worse.

He heard the shuffling of feet, and then another person kneeled in front of his hiding spot. A dark skinned man in a blue suit. He looked very distinguished, trustworthy.

“Adam,” His voice was soft, “Are you with us.”

He was caught, might as well talk with it, see what he could find, “Who are you, and where am I.”

The man seemed surprised, “I am doctor Adric, and you are on the UNSC Omen.”

“What is that.”

Though the man seemed surprised his voice was still and calming, “The UNSC omen is your ship.”

Adam stared at him, laughed and then shook his head, “If you want to trick me, you have to do better than that.”

The man stared at him, “Why do you think i’m trying to trick you.”

“Because I’m not an admiral. I’m a cadet. I haven't finished training yet.”

Dr. Adric pulled back for a moment, and he listened to the voices as suddenly, a cold tingling sensation entered his mind.

“Oh dear, admiral, what have you been doing in here, everything is very jumbled.”

He flinched and cried out, grabbing at his ears, though the voice continued inside his head.

“Where did you put those memories…. Didn’t get rid of them did you, that would be unfortunate…. No…. here they are. Going to have to fix this.”

“Who are you! Get out of my head.”

“That has never worked before.”

Voices in the real world this time.

“He’s still in there, though it seems he cannot access his most recent memories.”

“SO he just woke up this morning and had no idea where he was.”

An annoyed voice, “Dr. Adric, no one told me this could happen to humans.”

“It is…. rare . A fugue state or partial retrograde amnesia usually doens happen without a…. Reason. Hold on, that flower on the planet we were exploring yesterday, it got pollen all over him. Perhaps that had something to do with it.”

He didn’t understand what they were talking about.”

Dr. Adric knelt down back in front of the door, “Adam, it seems as if you have an acute case of partial retrograde amnesia.”

He laughed, “Sure thats what the matrix would say.”

Dr Adric sighed and tapped his fingers against his chin for a moment, “Adam, if we were the matrix, we would be much better at integrating your memories with your new reality. The whole point of the matrix is to make sure you don’t find out you are in the matrix. Otherwise we would have metal rebellion on our hands.”

That was a… good point he supposed.

“So…. you think I just forgot everything.”

“Yes.”

“How could I forget ALIENS!” He pointed a finger at the blue alien peering at him from the side of the hole.

“The mind is a strange thing, Adam, now please come out of there, so we can try and help ou remember.”

Should he do it?

Well… he had always wanted to meet aliens.

If this WAS the matrix, he might as well enjoy it for a while.

The group of them looked relieved when he crawled out of his hole and stood, and immediately stepped back in shock.

Three aliens.

He stared at the tiny insect like alien with its wide orange eyes for prisms.

“Woah…. And what are you.”

“A vrul, and the acting physician on this ship. The person who TOLD YOU NOT TO TOUCH THE FLOWER!”

He stepped back i surprise at the little creature’s hostility.

The blue alien rested a hand on his shoulder, “Ignore him, hes just a bit grumpy.”

He stared at her hand and then looked up at her. Another shot of fizzing tingles ran through his skin and he…. His heart hammered in his chest. He fought back the sensation confused and a bit distrurbed, ‘Who are you?”

She seemed, almost hurt by his words, but didn’t say anything other than ,”Sunny. I am the ship's weapons specialist. I am a Drev.” 

“Cool.”

And then he turned towards the last alien, ethereal and billowing like a fish in water, with its white skin and wide dark eyes.

The voice prickled inside his mind again, “I am starborn, conn, and I enjoy annoying you.” “Ok, thanks for being honest, I guess.”

Dr Adric rested a hand on his shoulder, “Perhaps a walk around the ship will help.”

He nodded and was led up the hall wide eyed as he stared.

A spaceship.

HIS spaceship.

“So you're telling me this is all mine? I fly this ship. I’m like the Captain of this ship.”

“More than that.” Sunny said, “You are the acting fleet Admiral of the UNSC and the GA.”

“What is the GA.”

“The Galactic Assembly. The intergalactic government of planets run by all sentient species in the galaxy.”

He couldn't help the smile that passed over his face, “Like the senate in star wars?”

“Yes, pretty much.”

“So cool!”

The group laughed, “Still the same Adam in there.”

They walked out into the hall, and he stared wide eyed as a troop of small fluffy round aliens walked past up the hall.

“Aw they’re so-” A hand clamped over his mouth, holding him until they passed.

“You don’t want to do that Adam, those are the Celzex, and while they may be adorable to humans they have nasty tempered and a heightened sense of honor. If you insult them they will not hesitate to turn their weapons on us.”

“Oh, whoopse.”

The blue alien grabbed him by the hand and hauled him down the corridor, the group of them showing him everything he should remember.

It all seemed…. Oddly familiar.

But he just couldn’t access the memories.

Either way this was so cool!

It wasn’t long before they were having trouble controlling him as he raced around the ship with wide eyes to look at all the strange new things he was seeing, pointing them out, saying hi to people asking them what they did. THey looked confused at first until someone told them what was going on, and then they gladly told him.

He was led into the rec room at some point where he met a group of marines that claimed to be his good friend.

A short blond woman who gave him the sneaking suspicion that she could kick his ass, a tanned marine, with a bright white smile and looks that were way too good for him to be a marine.

A dark skinned engineer, who was probably the sun goddess reincarnated.

He opened his mouth to ask her a question and she held up a hand.

“No, before you ask. I cannot make a lightsaber.”

He frowned, “Some future this is.”

She rolled her eyes.

The others laughed.

“Didn’t change much even without your memories.

The blond one, named maverick leaned forward a bit in her seat grinning wolfishly, “You know, what about smells. I hear they are connected closely to memories.”

Dr Adric nodded, “Not a bad Idea Maverick.”

Adam sniffed at the air, “but I don’t smell anything.”

“Just wait here a second and we will see if we can find anything. ramirez , watch him for a minute will you.” The marine nodded giving an easy smile.

The others left and he stared at the two marines, “So, how do we know each other.”

“Well i’m your best friend, your best human friend anyway. We met on the Enterprise, discovered aliens together.”

His eyes were wide, woah.”

“Hmmm, an associated smell.”

He tapped his chin for a moment before grinning and reaching down to pull off his boot.

Maverick recoiled, “Anything but that.”

“Oh come on, its the strongest smell I have.”

Adam backed away, “I am not curtesy sniffing your feet”

The man held out a boot, “Oh come on, you want your memories back, don’t you.” he took the boot hesitantly.

“I, guess…. I doubt this is going to work though.”

“Won’t kill you.”

“You sure about that?” Either way, he took a tentative sniff at the boot.

He shouldn’t have worried, he could smell it from here and sweet lord above, he was almost knocked off his feet. Yes partially from the stench and partially from a wave of memories, not related to the horrible smell, but a strange undertone. A smell associated with this specific marine. It was like…. The desert, warm concrete and sunlight on leather.

He staggered back, remembering snippets of laughter, space suits, the sound of blades on ice, cold washing over his skin, and warm laughter. He fell onto the ground head spinning, and felt the dog press up against him. He clasped her around the neck and buried his face in her fur breathing in deeply. Another wave hit him.

Fear.

Trembling 

The sound of gunfire. Being curled up in a room somewhere rocking back and forth as memories assaulted him. A room full of bodies, a shambling corpse in the dark, a flooding of traumatic memories that made him want to scream, but all with another undertone. Something warm, and something understanding.

When he came out of it, he was gasping.

The two marines were standing over him.

“Angel…. Maverick?”

They grinned, “Damn straight, you remembered.”

“I don't remember…. Everything.”

He was still sitting there when the others made their way into the room holding various items.

Dr. Krill walked over first handing him a little container of rubbing alcohol. Sniffing at it, he remembered nothing at first, that was until he was flooded again with memories. An alien hospital, his missing eye, the little doctor that had taken care of him. Taking krill aboard the ship, thousands of missions they had been on together.

He gasped a bit.

“Its working.”

Dr. katie moved forward, handing him a space suit helmet, which still smelled of space, a slight burnt smell, and the fabric interior.

Another wave crashed over him. Flying the F-90 for the first time, meeting aliens, spacewalks, nebulas and stars whirlin around him. His head was still spinning as they dragged him to his feet, walking him around a ship that was becoming more and more familiar as he walked. He knew where things were without being entirely sure where he had learned it.

Until he walked into the cargo bay and was hit by a wave of smells, that had him nearly toppled over. He remembered the ship, his old ship, he remembered the battles and stepping to her for the first time. He remembered the burg war and all that had happened during that time.

It was all coming back to him.

And when he finally straightened up he remembered who he was.

It was such a relief.

He looked around at his ship and took a deep breath. Everyone stared at him, “Remember, Admiral.”

He nodded, “I remember….. That was…. Wow.” he shook himself.

“That was strange. Poor simon must have been so confused I-”

He turned his head surprised to catch sight of the blue Drev vanishing out of sight behind a corner. That was when he realized she was the only one he didn’t remember.

He looked over at Ramirez who stared back at him.

“Ramirez, Sunny…. Who is she.”

The other man stepped back in shock and consternation so profound that he realized he must have forgotten something horribly important. Ramirez took him by the shoulder and walked him away from the others.

“Did I offend her somehow.”

Ramirez looked at him with an expression of pity, “Adam.” He said quietly, “I…. i mean yeah….. Your dating her.”

That revelation hit him like a slap in the face, and his mouth opened and closed for a moment.

“I what!”

“You heard what I said. You love her.”

He shook his head in confusion, “I think I would remember something that important wouldn’t I…. but I can’t be dating her….”

“Because shes an alien?” Ramirez snapped.

He held up his hands, “No! Because i’m to much of a chicken to date ANYONE.”

Ramirez poked him in the chest, “Well you better go after her and FIND a way to remember.”

He was surprised at his friend’s hostility towards him, looking over his shoulder to where she had vanished, “ok, ok.” 

He followed after her, moving down the hall. That couldn't be right, just thinking about dating someone made his skin all tingly and send blood rushing up into his neck and face in embarrassment.

And an alien.

That was…. So strange.

He turned a corner following where his memories were vague, knowing he would likely find her there.

He was right, he found her in engineering sitting quietly on a workbench staring at her hands.

He paused in the doorway.

“Sunny?”

She looked up at him, and the expression in her eyes was…. heartbreaking . He had no idea why it hit him so hard, but the pain was almost physical like a kick in the stomach.

He grimaced, “I…. Ramirez told me that…. We.”

His ears flushed red, his heart hammered in his chest. His hands were shaking. This all seemed so strange.

She turned her head, ‘Its alright…..”

She didn’ say it, but he knew what she should be saying. If she was the last thing he remembered, than clearly she wasn’t that important. Even thinking that made him feel horrible, and he knew that wasn’t right either.

He stepped a bit closer, and as he did the small workshop send a gust of wind into his face. The smell of oil and grease, the burnt smell of plastic and paper and metal together.

Then the smell of.

Moss.

He nearly fell over as the weight of the new memories hit him. A battle under an ashen sky, the pain in his leg, fear, and then following that, something else. A feeling he couldn’t describe and didn’t want to try. Memories rolled in front of his eyes and as they flooded in they seemed to glue all of his other memories back into place, pulling him together as a whole person once more.

The last piece that held the puzzle together.

He staggered forward.

And she caught him, supporting him with all four hands. And when his eyes opened he remembered.

He smiled resting a hand against the side of her face. Her relief and his relief together was obvious, “Gotta save the best for last, right.”

[minhoslut]

♡ summary: Reader is traded to a band of pirates in return for the safety of her village because of her plant magic. They are not like she expected, much more like her than she could even imagine in fact. This is a journey through their relationships and the high seas they sail on.

♡ pairing: superm x fem!reader, superm x eachother

♡ chapter: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | ? |

♡ series warnings: blood mention, injury mention, swearing, anxiety, death mention, depression, weapons, mxm

♡ series genre: romance, smut, angst

♡ series rating: Mature

♡ word count: 2261

♡ posted on: AO3

♡ chapter four: ice cold

Baekhyun returned with the entirety of the main crew whom you'd met, all of them taking a seat on various lower bunks, avoiding you beside Taemin, while the captain stop at the doorway. "It seems that hiding information was not the correct course of action. It was meant to soothe you rather than cause more harm." Jongin began slowly, watching your reaction carefully. "How could I be happy on a boat like this with a bunch of pirates? You took me from my home!" You huff, what kind of stupid logic was that. "Well, we were looking for you to complete our crew." You stared at him blankly, "What do you mean complete? How am I supposed to fit in here?" Jongin smiled, "Well if you stopped interrupting me, I could tell you." You snapped your mouth shut and he continued, "Good girl, now as I was saying, you were sought after rather than just randomly taken. All of us, in this room, are like you, we each have a power." What? How could that be? You were cursed, did they meet the same fate? You were nearly bursting with questions but you figured he would explain more if you said nothing. "Baekhyun is water, Taeyong is animals, Lucas is metal, Ten is fire, Mark is crafting, Taemin is light, and finally I am weather." You looked at each of them as Jongin listed off their powers, eyes landing back on the man speaking in the end. "Our powers are quite helpful in our trading business, it's the reason we all have such odd hair as well."

Not able to hold it back anymore you blurt out a question, "Ok, but what does that have to do with me? And I'd hardly call you traders your pirates for fucks sake." Jongin smirked. "You are the eighth person with powers such as ours. For many years we were under the impression there were no others until we heard rumour of you. I'm sorry that we took you from your home but I have a feeling that you didn't have many ties there other than, based on your power, a garden." It was annoying how accurate he was in his analysis, and the stupid smirk on his face made it more annoying since he knew you couldn't say anything. "As for trading, we have different ways of going about our trading, but we trade with mostly other pirates anyway, on pirate ports. We simply don't wait to trade for valuable or rare things when we could just take it from those who are not pirates." You narrow your eyes, "So you're looking down on everyone who isn't a pirate? You think you can ruin peoples lives just because?" Jongin shook his head at your words, "We would never steal from a good person or someone without much to give. Think more like kings and palaces that have many jewels for no reason, we simply take them away to be used." You scoffed, it was a stupid excuse, but they were pirates so you didn't expect them to see how wrong it was. "Regardless, I didn't want to come." You snap. Mark rolled his eyes and gave an annoyed sighed, "That's why we just took you dumbass."

"Mark." Jongin shot the smaller man a sharp look, which silenced him immediately, leaving him pouting like a puppy. "It's unfortunate that we had to take you, but there wasn't really a way for us to ask you to join, we have a reputation to uphold." You shook your head in disbelief, they were really going to brush it off just like that. "Y/N, I know it's hard to understand but we all have our reasons..." Taemin said, his hand still rubbing gentle circles on your back. You sighed, at least they were being honest now but you still felt angry about the situation. "It's not home yet, but hopefully you find yourself able to relax here eventually. I'd like to tell you to not go anywhere alone, I trust the men in this room, but the rest of the crew can be, less pleasant." Jongin said, bringing your attention back to him.

"This will never be my home, this is a prison. I still hate my magic and I still hate it here. I still hate all of you." Your sharp words filled the room with ice. "That may be the case, but maybe we can teach you more about your powers and you could hate them less." Baekhyun said, sadness lacing his voice as he looked at you. Regret bubbled in your heart despite your minds protest. "Regardless of everything, you are here now and we will keep you safe and healthy while you're with us." Jongin said firmly, then he called for Mark to leave with him, leaving you with the five other men in a very uncomfortable silence.

"Taemin, could help me up on my bed please?" You asked softly, thoroughly exhausted by your tears and the conversation. Your mind was racing with all the information, trying to process it and sort it out in your head. "Of course." Taemin said, standing and interlocking his hands and offering you a step up onto the bed. Once you are on the bed, you pull the blanket over your body and curl up into a ball in the farthest corner. Everything about this situation is hurting you, and none of them seem to understand that.

You listen to the hushed whispers of the crew after they assume you've fallen asleep, you can tell they are talking about you because you hear the words 'plant' and 'girl.' Tears fell from your eyes as you curled even deeper into yourself, you didn't want to be here anymore, not on this ship, not on this Earth.

~

When you woke up the next morning the cabin was empty save for Ten who was sitting on Marks bed reading a book. You sat up, wrapping yourself in the blanket. "You're up? Do you want to get food?" The maroon haired man asked you, his voice gentle. Shaking your head you laid back down and stared at the ceiling, listening to the door shut behind Ten as he left to get food for himself. After a few moments of quiet, you sat up once more and carefully hopped off the bed. You thought of last night when the captain had told you not to leave alone, but you couldn't stand to be in the room any longer. Pulling the door open you headed to the main deck, finding it almost empty since most of the crew was eating. You walked straight to the edge of the ship and leaned over the side to watch the waves crash against the boat.

The ocean had always scared you, even before you'd been cursed. You avoided it as much as you could when you'd lived on the island, never learning to swim and spending your time as far inland as you could while still doing your work. The ocean was loud and dark and vast, a never-ending abyss of huge waves, dangerous storms, and creatures unknown. And now here you were, in the middle of that horrible ocean, staring into the darkness of the waters and feeling the salty air chill as the clouds ahead turned dark. You leaned farther over the edge stepping on tiptoe, the mist of ocean spray covering your skin. Breathing in deeply you lean even farther, nearly unbalanced as the ocean looms ever closer.

"Y/N!" A voice shouts your name and you are yanked away from the edge of the ship in a hurry. You scramble to pull out of the grip of the person who is holding you, but they simply turn you in their grasp. Lucas' dark brown eyes stared into your own as you relax in his hold now that you know it's not a random crew member. "What were you doing you could have fallen in?" Lucas sounded genuinely worried about your safety and you felt like a small child being chastised. "I was just thinking." You said softly, looking away from his eyes. Lucas sighed, "You aren't supposed to go around alone anyway, you should have come to the dining hall to get one of us. You knew we were there." You huff, "Wouldn't that still be going somewhere alone? Where's the logic in that." Lucas stares at you a moment before he begins to laugh. It's a loud and boisterous laugh that has you trying to conceal the smile that is twitching at your lips. "Well, let's get you to Baekhyun, it's his turn to have you shadow him."

You sighed, not looking forward to it. Baekhyun had sounded so sad last time you'd seen him and you had a feeling that would carry over to today. You shouldn't be so concerned for one of the men who kidnapped you but you couldn't help it. Following the tall man, you reached the captains quarters where Lucas knocked lightly. You heard shuffling in the room and then the door was opened by Baekhyun who was doing up the buttons on his shirt. His eyes flitted to yours for an instance but you saw the sadness that they held. "We are headed to the maps room today, checking our distance for the next port." Baekhyun said plainly, then started walking away quickly, making you run slightly to catch up with him. It was silent as you walked, observing the blue-haired man as he walked ahead of you. He held himself with confidence and a sense of power, his shoulders set and head held high, subtly commanding the respect of those around him.

You soon reached a small room with a large desk in the center, that was covered in many pieces of parchment and some strange objects you didn't recognize. Baekhyun gestured to one of the chairs that were in the room so you sat in it while he moved the things on the desk around. We should be nearing port in the next day or so, so I need to make sure we are where we should be." He explained, but there was no real emotion in his voice. You sat quietly while he used the strange tools and held them against the maps, comparing lengths in ways that made absolutely no sense to you. Baekhyun made no attempts at conversing with you, and it wasn't in the way a person would when they are overly focused. It was an empty drawn-out silence that you hated. He must be really upset about last night... Your heart twinged at the thought. "Baekhyun?" You tried cautiously, but you were ignored. "Baekhyun?" You said again, a bit stronger but still no response. "Baek-" - "Y/N I don't want to talk ok?" You snapped your mouth shut, feeling hurt by the cold words.

The rest of the day was spent watching Baekhyun check the map and then following him out onto the main deck while he made sure everyone was doing what was needed to prepare for docking the next day. He hadn't spoken a word to you since he'd said not to talk, and you'd given up on trying since the silence hurt less than the words did at least. In the evening it was mealtime again, but you still didn't want anything, the day with Baekhyun had only added to the turmoil inside of you and made your appetite disappear. You tried to go to the room but Baekhyun had given a stern look before nodding his head towards the table so in the end you were sitting at the table beside Taeyong and Jongin at the head as usual. Taeyong had apparently lost at seat picking since he ended up beside you, you could hear him mumbling under his breath when he'd sat down.

You focused on your hands in your lap during the meal, picking at the skin around your nails. "/N? Y/N!" You looked up at the person saying your name and found Ten waving his hand in front of you. "You haven't eaten today." He stated plainly, "Not hungry." You answered simply, returning your gaze to your now bleeding cuticles. "Come back to the room with me then, we have an early morning together." Ten said, standing up and walking towards the door. You must be shadowing him tomorrow, so you got up and went after him. He led you to a room you hadn't been in yet that was filled with bandages and had a simple cot in it. "Hands." He said and you held them out to him. Ten made a clicking noise with his tongue then grabbed a roll of cloth and wrapped each of your fingers with it. "There, now you won't make them any worse." He said returning the leftover cloth to a shelf. "Thanks..." You said softly, feeling embarrassed by having someone care for your injury

Ten turned on his heel and exited the room, so you did as well, making your way back to the bunks. Ten gave you a step up onto your bed before heading over to his, but before he got up he removed his shirt putting the smooth expanse of his skin on display to you. You felt your cheeks warm as you watched the muscles in his back move, quickly turning your head when Ten had jumped up on his bed and turned to face you. "Sleep well." You heard him say softly before the room was enveloped in silence.

#superm #superm x reader #lee taeyong #byun baekhyun #kim jongin #ten #lucas wong #mark lee #lee taemin #high seas

[niqhtlord01]

Humans are weird: Space Pirates

A Pirate’s Perspective.....Part 2 (part 1 here https://niqhtlord01.tumblr.com/post/186975300276/humans-are-weird-space-pirates ) Amelia gazed up at the mechanized helper bots. Each was as large as a shipping container on tread tracks and with grappling arms designed to lift the weight of three containers at once; and she was looking at a dozen of them... Their red lenses turned towards her and she could feel the operators behind them grinning as they made them roll forward.  She rolled aside just as a massive grapple arm smashed down towards her caving in the deck like a tin can where she had been standing. As she got up she saw the rest of her crew idling in the entry port, watching the whole struggle like it was a Saturday morning cartoon.  “Well don’t just stand there you fraking idiots!” she shouted as she rolled away again as more of the helpers converged on her. “Start shooting something!”  “FOR GOLD AND GLORY!” The pirates raised their guns and fired as they darted into the cargo ship after their captain. The small arms fire bounced off the plating of the helpers but it was enough to draw several of them away from Amelia to face this new threat.  The hold quickly devolved into chaos as the pirates circled round the helpers and continued firing at them from all sides, climbing several of the storage racks to shoot down at them. Despite being greatly outnumbered by the pirates, the dozen mechanized helpers began quickly evening out the odds. Their grappling arms swinging left and right in a frenzy, catching the occasional unlucky pirate and flinging them into a nearby wall and turning them into a bloody art piece.  One of the mechanized helpers reached into the storage racks and pulled out a cargo container. Grabbing it with both hands above their head the chucked it at the pirates higher up, taking several of them at once.  Amelia had finally got tired of rolling around like some pansy video game character and drew her side arms. Unlike the rest of her crew, these guns were custom designed with enough stopping power to blow a hole through any locked door. With a weapon in each hand she began calmly side stepping around the nearest mechanized helper while unloading round after explosive round into its head casing.  The shells began denting the casing as the unit turned and began rapidly advancing on the pirate captain realizing she was the most dangerous threat in the room. The bark of her pistols drowned out the surrounding battle until Amelia’s world was nothing but her weapons and her target. The units advance began to falter as it brought its arms up to protect its head as the shells streamed out one after another.  *Click* *Click* *Click* *Click*  The unit lowered its arms to see that the pirate captain’s weapons had run dry and quickly resumed its advance before she had time to reload.  To the unit’s surprise Amelia threw away her weapons and pulled a second pair of pistols from her combat mesh. She smiled as the shells found their mark this time, breaching the head casing and detonating inside the brain cortex. The mechanized helper lost control of itself and powered past Amelia and smashed full speed into the wall.  Without bothering to admire her kill Amelia turned to see Mr. Fig sprinting into the hold and leap on to the nearest mechanized helper in a single bound. With a gurgling roar he opened his jaw larger than should have been physically possible and latched on to the head before biting down. As Mr. Fig began ripping the head off Amelia was greeted to a sight of tearing metal, snapping cables, and a shower of sparks before the entire head was detached and spat away.  “As impressive as that was Mr. Fig, I doubt that’s good for your teeth.” Amelia called out as she sought a new target. Mr. Fig turned towards her and to her surprise smiled, showing that every tooth in his jaw was now either missing or broken. A strange crunching sound started coming from his jaw and to her surprise an entirely new set of sharpened teeth began forcing their way through his gums dripping with blood. “That’s alright captain, I’ve got plenty more.”  “And here I thought my dreams had enough nightmares.” Mr. Tipples waddled into the room tinkering with a small metallic disk.”Just about set captain.” She turned around to see her crew were getting the ever living shit kicked out of them. At least the ones still alive were she noted, finding a few more nauseating living murals now plastering the walls and floor. “go now!” she shouted waving Mr. Tipples forward, “While we still have a crew at all!”  Mr. Tipples finished his tinkering and placed the disk into a pouch on the front of his clothes. Dropping down to all fours, Mr. Tipples suddenly began charging into the room, dashing between the clumsy smashings of the mechanized helpers. Their massive bodies now turning against them as they could not hit such a small target without first hitting each other.  As Mr. Tipples neared the first helper he threw the small disk at the head unit and with a magnetic click it latched on. Shortly after the head unit turned into a shower of sparks as the power dampeners inside the disk activated ans sapped all of the units power at once leaving it a dead husk.  Amelia watched as Mr. Tipples continued darting between the over-sized grappling arms and treads while throwing disks left and right.   Mr. Fig, not wanting to be outdone, ran after him and with sheer force ripped off an entire arm of a helper and using it as a club proceeded to beat it out of commission.  Seeing the situation now under control she turned to the surviving crew. “We’ve still got a ship to take, get moving!”  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After the battle at the boarding tube the rest of the assault went rather smoothly. The crew of the cargo ship appeared to be a skeleton size and largely unarmed. Mr. Tipples and Mr. Fig’s teams ran into some resistance but the crew were using metal pipes and tools to defend themselves. After one was foolish enough to take a swing at Mr. Fig with a metal bat he caught it in his jaw and snapped it in two the crew began surrendering.  The last group on the bridge held out only slightly longer. They had sealed the doors and refused to open them, stating that they were strong enough to withstand any explosive device.  Not wanting to be slowed down any longer, Amelia ordered the charges to be placed on the wall section beside the door instead and blew a hole straight through the wall and then proceeded to storm the bridge.  All captives were brought to the main hold and gathered outside the sealed loading doors. Unlike the rest of the ship, the central hold was designed to withstand the destruction of the entire ship while keeping the cargo safe inside. The designers had placed more worth on the cargo than the rest of the ship so blasting it open was not an option.  Amelia was beginning to wonder if she would need to start torturing the captives to get the cargo ships captain to unlock the hold when Mr. Tipples finally cracked the code and unlocked the central hold.  As was her law, she had first pick of the loot before the rest was divided up among the rest of the pirate crew. Amelia was unlike most pirate captains as they would claim the largest share of loot for themselves and the scraps were then divided among the crew. Not many things ever interested her enough to value wanting and so she only picked one item for herself. Additionally, by offering her crew the larger share she ensured that they would remain loyal to her any potential mutineer would have a tough sell against such generous terms.  Amelia had Mr. Tipples and Mr. Fig stand guard outside over the captives while she entered the central hold alone. The inside was dark and cold, the only source of light coming through the opening in the door Amelia stepped through. She reached into one of the mesh pockets and withdrew a small sphere. She pressed the sphere’s activation, but when nothing happened she pressed it several more times before resigning to shaking it violently in the palm of her hand. Finally the sphere started emitting a strong light and hovered just above her head, following her as she continued walking between the cargo containers.  The hold was eerily silent with only the echoing of her prosthetic leg resounding in the chamber. The central hold was truly massive, running nearly the entire length of the ship from just under the bridge to the engines. There were other cargo holds inside the ship that surrounded the central hold that were by far easier to access, but the goods held within them would be of little value compared to what was in the central hold.  Smiling as she saw that the entire hold was stacked from bow to stern with containers packed three high Amelia picked one at random to inspect. The container was standard issue just like the ones she had been fighting between mere hours before but she had to start somewhere. She figured she would be searching through several or several dozen to see if there was anything she wanted before letting the crew in. The first sign something was wrong was when she inspected the doors to the container. Usually, valuable cargo inside central holds would have state of the art locking mechanisms per container. Instead, Amelia was met with a thick metal chain with a large padlock holding it together.  She approached the door and pressed her ear to the container listening carefully. She waited for what felt like an eternity before she heard a soft rustling sound. She stepped back from the door and smiled. Most likely there was something alive in there and might be some form of exotic animal. Rich traders paid millions to decorate their trade offices with such creatures to flaunt their wealth and she had found her pet Hydra in one such shipment.   She drew a pair of pistols and with a swift motion blew the lock clean off, the chains falling to the ground soon after echoing out loudly.  Grabbing hold of one of the doors, Amelia hauled it open carefully just in case something rushed her.The inside of the container was pitch black but she could clearly make out rustling sounds now, the familiar jingle clinking of chains. Despite not being able to see inside the container she clearly could smell something was alive as she was hit by a wave of rancor that would have made lesser men throw up constantly. Amelia was a pirate captain and was used to such odors aboard her ship, so she only coughed violently.     She took hold of the glow sphere and gently pushed it inside of the container, her pistol aimed inside. The chain rattling was getting louder now as the sphere went deeper inside the container and Amelia was sure she was about to lay eyes on her prize.  As the light neared the back of the container she did indeed see what twas chained. Several strands of metal chains were welded to the ceiling of the container holding up the ragged husk of people. As the sphere cast more light Amelia saw that it wasn’t just adults. Longer strands of chains held what she could only assume were children, every chain locked around a bulky metal collar.  They were humanoid in shape but as Amelia took a closer look she saw that none of the figures chained to the walls had mouths and their eyes were a light shade of pure blue with no iris. Their clothes were torn and dirty, covered in fesses as there was no place to use the bathroom.  The smaller aliens clumped together behind the larger ones who were standing between Amelia and them, protecting them from a potential threat. As if this scene of barbarity was not horrific enough Amelia  recoiled in horror as she saw that some of the larger aliens chained were not moving at all. They had died were being held up by their metal collars.  Amelia’s mind was racing now, unable to fully comprehend what she was seeing. She unsteadily took a step back but her prosthetic leg slid in something and she tumbled over. She blinked her eyes as she fell and as she opened them she saw the larger aliens rush her. The comforting feeling of her pistol was still in her hand she fired off a warning shot into the ceiling of the container.  The rush of aliens stopped and they quickly retreated back to the far end of the container and watched as Amelia slowly rose to her feet, wiping off portions of shit that still clung to her.  She had risen to her feet again when one of the smaller ones broke from the group and approached her. The others attempted to stop her but she pushed past them until she was as far as she could go, the chain of her collar pulling taunt against the wall holding.  The alien was not barely up to the height of Amelia’s knees and gazed up at her. Without saying anything they held out their hand.  “I...” Amelia’s brain was rapidly throttling by this point. “I.....I don’t...”   She slowly backed out of the container back into the central hold and vomited, her composure all but forgotten at what she had just witnessed. She vommited for a minute before wiping her face and calming down. The glow sphere now was hovering above her saving her from the sight of such horror, but she could still here the aliens chains rattling from inside.  A sudden horrific realization struck her and she immediately stormed over to the next container. She blew off the lock and threw open the door without hesitation. The sphere’s light casting inside showed a similar sight as before. Alien figures chained to the sides of the container.  She went to the next container, blew off the lock, then took a look inside. Then she repeated it again for the next one, and the one after that, and then again for the one after that. She searched some twenty containers, all of them filled with chained aliens either dead or on the verge of dying.  it could not be denied that she lived outside the rules of the law and was a criminal by all means. But there were some crimes that even she could never forgive, nor leave unpunished.  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Amelia emerged from the central hold and gazed over the captives. Mr. Fig and Mr. Tipples looking startled and relieved at her return as it had been nearly a half hour since she entered the hold. “Jesus captain. A little warning next time before yo-” Amelia glared at Mr. Fig and the sudden look of raw hatred and anger on her face silenced him. Jenka noticed the other pirates take a cautious step backwards as if they knew something that look meant and were just as terrified as the Predatoria. Amelia moved towards the captain of the Morbis Ulta, not bothering to wait for the other captives to move out of the way she merely shoved them violently out of her path. At reaching the captain she grabbed him by the collar and lifted him to his feet, her eyes glaring like knives into his soul. “Did you know what you were transporting?” The captain stuttered as he struggled in the surprisingly strong grip of Amelia. She slapped him across the face sending him flying back to the floor. “Did.You.Know?” Her voice was as sharp as a knifes edge as she looked around at the rest of the crew. The captain didn’t have to say anything, his body language betrayed him.  He knew........... Without saying another word Amelia stamped her leg three times and once again the Hydra appeared at her side. She gestured to the cowering captain on the ground and spoke only one word. “Feast.” All five mouths of the Hydra shot open and the creature surged past Amelia. The captain began screaming as the five heads latched on to him and began biting off chunks of flesh one at a time. He cried and shouted for help as he tried to crawl away only for the Hydra to tear into his legs and pull him back. Several other captive crew members rushed to their captains side to protect him but the Hydra turned on them just as rapidly. Teeth latching on to throats before ripping them wide open and leaving the gasping crew members bleeding out on the floor. Amelia watched the dying captain for a moment. There was no grin on her face, no witty remark about the captain’s demise, only grim satisfaction. She then turned and walked over to Mr. Fig.  He didn’t look surprised at the his captain’s pet viciously devouring another living creature, but he knew his captain and he did show concern as she was not one prone to overly violent and cruel actions.  “Captain, what did you find in there?” he asked.  She looked up at him, her mouth opening and closing as if trying to find the right words to describe what she had saw; but her silver tongue failed her. “Evil.” she simply stated.  She glanced back at the remaining captives who were all now recoiling from the Hydra as it finished eating their captain. Mr. Fig followed her line of sight then looked back at her. She motioned for him to come closer and he leaned down for her. “None of them make it off this ship alive. Finish it, then have the crew enter the holds.”  With that Amelia left back into the holds without another word. Mr. Tipples looked up at Mr. Fig in confusion but with one glance something was communicated between the two of them. Mr. Tipples nodded and then followed after Amelia into the hold as Mr. Fig turned to the pirate crew. “Aim for their legs. No kill shots. Captain want’s her pet to have its meals alive.” Without further orders the pirate crew hefted their weapons to their sides and began firing into the captives. True to their orders none of the shots killed anyone but sent them sprawling to the floor with cries of pain on their lips from the weapons fire. As the Hydra began moving from one injured captive to another Mr. Fig motioned for the more pirates to follow him into the hold.  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the end the pirates discovered that every container aboard the two of the three transport ships they raided were full of chained aliens. Not all of them were the same species, some were even human to Amelia’s surprise.  Amelia was in the process of deciding on what to do with them when the boarding crew for the third and final transport came in. It seems that some of the slaves broke out of their cells and had rioted, killing the crew and taking controller of the ship. What really caught  Amelia’s eye was that from the report the breakout was started by a small human child and a Predatorian.  “What are your orders captain?” Amelia looked up from the report and saw Mr. Fig and Mr. Tipples looking at her on the command deck of the Liberty Jewel.  She reclined in her chair and looked upwards, her mind still not fully grasping how civilized peoples of the stars could rely on such barbaric practices of slavery.   She had worked herself into a depressing mood when she felt her Hydra nuzzling up against her. She scratched their heads and she perked up some.  “Transfer all of the slaves to the third ship. They can take it and go where ever they want.” “And what about the our crew?” She looked down at Mr. Tipples. “They were expecting a cut from the cargo, but now we are letting the cargo go?”    Amelia stood up and descended the steps from her command throne to stand over Mr. Tipples. She gazed him in the eyes, any notion other than disgust present on her face. “They are people Mr. Tipples. People are not cargo. I would suggest you remember that.”  He felt the anger swelling up from her and cautiously took a step back. “Yes captain, sorry captain.” he said as he bowed. She gazed at him for a few moments longer before looking to the viewport. “Tell the crew that we’re taking the two remaining cargo ships and we can sell them back at the cove. There’s always someone looking for a large transport to move questionable goods.”  She watched the third cargo ship power up and begin floating away through the asteroid field. There was nothing more than to suppress this entire day’s adventure from her mind so she went about the process. “Mr. Fig, have our sister ships latch on to the cargo ships. Mr. Tipples, ensure that the locking is secure. Once that is done we will begin the journey back to the cove.”  With that Mr. fig and Mr. Tipples moved to begin issuing orders while Amelia returned to her throne, already planning her next raid and hopping her prize will be more of a profitable variety. Good deeds were all well and good, but a pirate craved profit and glory, and  Amelia was pirate first above all else.    

#HUMANS ARE WEIRD #humans are insane #humans are space orcs #humans are space oddities #scifi #space pirates #pirate #story

[dyna-myght]

Halloween Prompt List

Send in a female idol or group and an AU and a prompt/setting (you may also send in your own version of a prompt, as well as switch or change the roles of the reader and the idol) 

(please go easy on me, this is my first time making a list like this.) 

AUs:

Vampire AU 

A dark stormy night in an abandoned castle. The reader, lost in her travels, stops there for a night to find out that it wasn’t only her there. 

A crowded party. After continuous dancing, the reader slips off to a dark corner to rest when a pair of eyes catch hers from across the room. 

Walking home, the reader hears a scream. Hurrying after it, she is caught up in a blur and finds herself in a different place entirely with a beautiful woman. 

Werewolf AU 

The reader hears growling at the far end of the park, behind the trees. She cautiously go after it, expecting to see a stray dog. 

There is a scratching at the door. It is almost midnight. The reader peeks out the window to see what is going on. 

The reader had felt a pull towards the woods on the night of a full moon. In the middle of the woods, she finds a beautiful woman right before she turns. 

Witch AU 

The reader heard chanting near-by on her way home for work. She walks in on a beautiful woman with a book sitting before her, surrounded by symbols painted on the ground. 

There was a bright light coming from her new next door neighbor’s house. 

A strange feeling comes over the reader and before she knows it, she is standing before a glowing woman. 

Mad Scientist AU 

Her neighbor is always so loud; the reader decides to go over to ask her if she could be quieter, but instead the reader finds the door broken down. 

It was a rainy night, lightning zipping across the sky as thunder roars. The reader is walking alone at night when the house across the street from her is hit by the lightning. 

The woman walking in front of her accidentally drops a notebook. Just as the reader is about to go return it, she glances at the page it is left on. 

Paranormal Investigator AU 

The reader is making her way through the halls of an abandoned hospital. She is recording her one sided conversations when suddenly she hears a reply back in her ear. 

She walks down the same halls she had for a 100 years, hearing the same creak in the floorboards. Many people has passed the reader, unaware of her presence. One night, she entered the room of a woman who has a camera and a tape recorder in her hand. 

The reader gets a lot of calls for her job, many people ether wanting to know if their relatives are watching over them or if there is anyway to bring peace back to their homes. When her own home starts to experience similar hauntings, she finds the apparition of a woman in her kitchen. 

Post Apocalypse AU 

The world is crumbing as the reader pulls through to find safety. When she entered an abandoned convenience store, she is almost shot by a woman hiding behind the counter. 

An abandoned farm house. The reader takes shelter there, and is awakened with loud knocking and screaming in the middle of the night. 

One of them is a zombie that falls in love with the other. 

Siren AU 

The beach on a cold, windy day. The reader went there to escape the stress of her life. The siren catches sight of her, but as she sings, she fears the wind is hiding her voice. 

The reader happens upon the washed up body of a woman. She tries to help until she notices that the woman had long, sharp teeth and her legs and arms are covered in scales. 

Out alone on a fishing trip, the reader’s fishing pole is pulled so strongly that she follows after it into the ocean. She comes face to face with a beautiful woman who's song starts to fill her ears. 

Pirates AU 

Lost at sea, they say, but the reader feels at home even in the middle of nowhere in an ocean. Her ship was her heart and the wind was her captain as she let it pull her anywhere. Or so she though until she docked and met someone at a near-by bar. 

She had crashed against the rocks, her crew groaning in annoyance. With no fear, the reader leaves the ship to investigate the damage when she finds a mermaid. 

The reader finds a stow away hiding within one of the crates below deck. She hides this information and sneaks the woman food and gets to know her, possibly developing feelings along the way.

Shape Shifter AU 

Falling in love with the reader, the idol transforms into her favorite animal (your choice, can be as ridiculous as possible) but when the reader takes her in to take care of her, she finds herself in a real dilemma hearing the reader’s worries about not seeing the idol for a while. 

The reader and her were walking together when some random men start to bother the reader. In anger, the idol transforms into a lion to scare them away, not realizing what she just revealed to the reader. 

The reader just learned about her powers in a horrifying scenario, she goes to the idol to talk about what she had learned to find out that the idol has the same powers as well. 

Aliens AU 

The reader was sitting by her window when she sees the bright flash just in her front yard. Hurrying outside, she finds a woman with blue and green skin lying unconscious on the grass. 

Stargazing on a hill, the reader makes a wish that she could find love just as a shooting star slips across the sky. When she opens her eyes, she finds a beautiful woman with wide eyes and antenna smiling at her. 

The reader is flying the UFO over the tall skyline of a city, hiding within the low rolling clouds of the night sky. Watching on the monitor, the reader disobey’s the leaders rules and follows the woman she saw walking on the streets below. She never knew humans could be so beautiful. 

Demon AU 

The reader is an angel who has a rivalry against the idol who is a demon. They tend to find each other being on the other side of the shoulder of the person she was supposed to be protecting. 

She was sent to stir up bad luck within the reader’s day, but following her around, the idol finds herself falling in love with the reader and finds it harder when the time comes for her to go back and report to the devil. 

Just after dying, the reader finds herself sitting across a beautiful woman. The reader begs to be brought back to life, the woman only gives her a cold hard stare. 

Angel AU 

After having the worst luck the reader has had her entire life, she finds herself being saved by a glowing woman just as a car is about to ram into her. 

Meeting once in a coffee shop, the reader and the woman became fast friends, but when one day, the woman brings up a fact that the reader knows she didn’t tell her, questions arise. 

The reader is a devil who has a rivalry against the idol who is an angel. They tend to find each other being on the other side of the shoulder of the person she was supposed to be messing with.

Detective AU 

She was sitting at her desk when the blurry face of the reader is at her door with an old murder case file that she needs to be solved or she will never be able to sleep again. Slow-burn, falling love ensures as the two bicker over how impossible the case is.

The reader used to be the idol’s flirtatious secretary, but now she finds herself solving a case as a detective herself and keeps running into the idol. 

The reader is a police officer who has always been annoyed with the idol butting in on cases she was trying to solve. Now she finds herself having to be forced to work with her. 

Lost in Space AU 

Cowboy Bebop; The reader’s spaceship runs out of fuel on her way to mars, leaving her stuck out in the middle of nowhere, floating within the stars. Other ships pass by but ignore the blinking emergency lights on her ship, but then one slows down only to learn it is the bounty hunter she was running from. 

The traffic is far and in between planets, other humans didn’t see a need to move from one to another as the journey takes too long. The reader and her girlfriend take a wrong turn at the North Star and find themselves on a new planet. 

Falling too hard into a day dream, the reader finds herself walking among the stars. Sitting upon one is a beautiful woman who upon seeing the reader, hurries off. The reader follows after her, finding herself lost within the galaxy. 

Parallel Universe AU 

The reader is a time traveller, but when she turned the dial on her watch a tick too far, she finds herself stuck time and space until she is pulled through to another world by a mysterious woman. 

At first, the reader is confused as to why she started crying and feeling sad while grocery shopping, but soon she comes to learn of a parallel universe after receiving a call from someone she never knew before, but knows a lot about her. 

Things felt off when she first woke up that morning, but as the day continued on, it grew stranger and stranger. When a woman she never met before started to talk to her about their engagement, she learns that she is in a parallel universe. Talking to the fiancé about this, the woman tries to help her, but then the reader falls in love with her. 

Ghost AU 

The reader had just moved into the house. Normally, the ghost tries to scare all new residents away, but when her tricks don’t work on her, she becomes more curious. 

The reader has just recently deceased in her sleep. When she opens her eyes lying on her bed, she finds another pair of eyes floating above her. 

Entering the graveyard on a dare, the reader clutches the fork that she was supposed to leave in a grave to prove she was there when a voice began to whisper to her, warning her it was a trick. 

Masquerade AU 

Phantom of the Opera. 

The reader was invited to a huge masquerade party, when she spots a woman in all red from head to toe standing on the other side, pulling her in closer with her stare. The reader follows her from room to room. 

Dancing with strangers wasn't the reader’s usual, but she let the kind masked lady spin her around through out the night, learning her secrets. 

Royal AU 

The princess is to be wed to the reader’s cousin, but she is in love with the reader. 

While the knight is guarding the castle, she sees a distant figure running the the distance. She chased after the person, tackling the person to the ground, but when she removes the hood, it’s the princess. 

An assassin is assigned to get rid of the princess, but when she gets there, she realizes that they never said to kill her and instead convinces the princess to run away with her. 

Mythology AU 

Lesbian Hades and Persephone but less problematic. 

The demigod is sent on a quest, dictated by the oracle. Reaching the end of her journey, she is met with a mythical creature, whom she was ready to fight, but upon looking her in the eyes, the reader can’t find the strength to swing her sword. 

One is apart of Artemis’s group, the other is a demigod friends with Apollo. When Apollo and Artemis are fighting, the two have to give each other messages of what the other said. They fall in love with each other slowly, Apollo notices this and pushes arguments too far to see the two of them together. 

Superhero/Villain AU 

The villain and superhero are roommates, but don’t know about each other’s secret identity. 

A new enemy has come to destroy the city, and now the villain unwilling has to pair up with the superhero because they are taken over the villain’s spot. 

The villain, now having the superhero trapped, pulls the mask off of the hero to only learn it was the woman she was falling for. 

#Halloween #Drabble game #Red Velvet #Blackpink #dreamcatcher #Izone #f(x) #CLC #Momoland #TWICE #Loona #Mamamoo #Gfriend #WJSN #(g)i-dle