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sorryimanon · 4 years

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Character: Katsuki Bakugou

Warnings/tags: heart warming fluff, language, and suggestive themes

Word count: 2.5k

In which your boyfriend takes it upon himself to pamper you on his day off.

Author’s note: some self indulgent fluff. this is a continuation of dad!bakugou and torch daughter. there will be more. enjoy :)

D/N= daughters name

Katsuki heavily relied on you to babysit your rambunctious four year old daughter during the days when he'd be on patrol from dusk till dawn. Very rarely would he be home before the two of you tucked yourselves in for the night, leaving him to eat the leftovers from dinner alone at the table. As sad as it is, it didn't bother you in the slightest. In fact, knowing Katsuki was keeping the crime rate of Japan low, you were more than happy to become a stay at home mom. Most of your friends tried to talk you out of it, but you were already settled after giving your two weeks notice at your low paying job. Waking up and seeing your daughter first thing in the morning is better than staring blankly at a bright screen all day behind a musty wall, running on nothing but decaf coffee, and sluggishly going to and fro like a zombie.

Ever since your daughter manifested her quirk, you’ve been trying your best to maintain her sudden outbursts while at home. The doctor prescribed it as Torch: the ability to become a human torch and ignite flames throughout your body and fingertips. For now d/n is only capable of setting herself on fire, using the flames as a barrier to protect her from any harm instead of combating. However, sometimes she'll forget to extinguish herself, having you to manually use an actual fire extinguisher on her. Burn marks would litter the outskirts of your shirts, the aftermath ash smudged on your face, and the tiny hairs on your forearms long gone after handling d/n.

Your boyfriend appreciates the way how you compose yourself around d/n, not allowing the temptation to fling the little gremlin out the window prevail, because if the roles were reversed it'd be a whole different story. Sometimes he sits back in his desk chair, after a long night of meandering around the city, and tries to remember the last time you were properly treated. Of course, Katsuki never fails to remind you day and night he loves you through his actions, some including selfish indulgence late at nights, but all in all he didn't lack being the hopeless romantic counterpart for you. He wanted you to take a break from it all, have him handle the at home duties and the slimy daughter. Leaning back against the chair with his brows furrowed slightly, he began to mentally plan out your day already.

It was a Friday when Katsuki forced himself out of the comfortable security that is your arms and walked with light feet to his daughters bedroom. Today is his day off, so he has to make sure everything goes smoothly or else he's going to have more burn marks on his office desk.

He didn't bother knocking first and saunters in the familiar space, the faint snores from d/n somehow relaxing him. Her walls were freshly painted a light shade of blue, the contrast not too saturated to peel the attention away from her posters that covered every inch of her room, all of which were pictures of his prohero colleagues. D/N had to beg for her father to purchase a Deku poster, one of which she saw don display when the both of you brought her to the mall for a quick trip. He internally cringes every time he makes eye contact with the lifeless eyes of Deku when he enters her room.

Katsuki neared his daughter and kneeled down to where his head was leveled with hers, chuckling lightly when finding a small pool of drool collecting on her cheek.

"Wake up little shit," he whispers, nudging her uncovered shoulder with his knuckles, startling her eyes to flutter open. D/n nearly gasped at the sight of her father. The covers that were wrapped snuggly around her fell at the foot of her bed when she jolted up in surprise, eyes brimming with excitement.

"It's today right? Mommy's day!" Katsuki covered her mouth with his abnormally large hand, not wanting her obnoxious voice to blow their cover.

"Yes, but you're gonna have to be quiet for daddy. Don't want to spoil the surprise for mommy, you understand ya little brat?"

Hand still attached to her mouth, d/n nodded her head feverishly, hands clenched into tiny fits. Once he thinks she's shimmered down a little, he finally removes his hand and motions her to follow him.

Meanwhile in the other room, you were still fast asleep, limbs not once switching from their position over the cozy blanket. The chill breeze from the propped window regulated your body temperature nicely, along with the beautiful songs sung by the birds that reside in the trees close by. You stirred awake momentarily, feeling the loss of a presence that's usually laying beside you during these times of slumber. Katsuki's side was empty, the indent from his body molded onto the foam mattress, leaving you to believe he woke up not that long ago.

After convincing yourself to leave the comfort of your bed, you decided to search for the missing blonde. You crack open the door to a weird combination of radio music blaring throughout the house, and the delicious smell of something cooking in grease. It's no doubt your boyfriends doing. He always likes to impress you with how skillful he is in the kitchen. He hasn't made a dish you disliked yet nor will he allow himself to do so.

Standing side by side, minus the height difference, d/n and Katsuki both were too immersed in their cooking to notice you leaning against the island counter, trying very hard to not cry instantly at the sight in front of you. Watching them interact together was definitely something you'd be treasuring for the years to come.

A rush of savory and sweetness infiltrated your senses, the scent strong enough to knock you back to sleep. As if he read your mind overnight, Katsuki took it upon himself to prepare your favorite breakfast dishes. The dinner table made for three already set by none other than d/n, who currently looked proud at her work and craftsmanship. A large vase was propped in the center, a collection of vibrant flowers stuffed to the brim, the water inside almost overflowing. Attached to one of the stems of the flowers was a tag, the handwriting sloppy and hard to decipher.

To my dumbass, love ya - K.B

You felt the delicate touch of your daughter wrapping her hand around yours, giving it a slight tug before pulling you into the kitchen again. Katsuki flicked his gaze to you now, flashing the same mischievous grin you grew to love. his hands simultaneously worked on the food while taming the animal, that is indeed your daughter, from bumping into the pan handles.

"What's all this for?" You asked, the question directly appointed to both your boyfriend and daughter.

"Oh, so I can't treat my sexy girlfriend to a good meal?" he teased while setting the burners to low, letting the food cool off before plating it. Your daughter audibly gagged at the comment and swatted Katsuki's arm.

D/N's tiny legs were faster than yours and reached the cabinet where the plates and cutlery were stored at. To her dismay, the cabinet was higher than she anticipated. trying her best to waiver down the disappointment as she climbed on the sleek marble counter top, losing her footing here and there. Katsuki caught her in time before she misplaced her footing and almost toppled onto the floor.

"May I need to remind you not to climb on the damn counter tops anymore d/n?" he scolded as he put her down before grabbing enough plates for everyone.

Pursing her lips tightly, she crossed her arms and said, "But if I'm going to be a future hero then I have to battle my way through tough obstacles!"

U.A's immense training and work studies came in handy when dealing with d/n's hard headed ideologies. It's been a stressful reoccurrence, having to constantly teach her the importance of being a hero at such a young age. Her impulsive tendencies mirrored the blondes old habit of taking action before thinking. But there was always a saying when storing away your fear and facing danger head on.

"That's true, but sometimes a little teamwork wouldn't hurt. Your father should know a thing or two about that when he was a young U.A student," you said as you patted her head.

"What'd you say shitty woman? Talking crap so early in the morning already?" a strange popping sound alerted you to turn around, only to find Katsuki flaring his flashy quirk with a glare that could splice you open.

But his alarming gaze wasn't the thing that was scaring you at the moment.

"WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT USING YOUR QUIRK IN THE HOUSE! YOU'RE GONNA SET OFF THE FIRE ALARM AGAIN, IDIOT!"

You thought the smorgasbord of a breakfast was the last of your boyfriends romantic gestures, but you should've known better once he demanded you to change out of your sleep attire and into something to wear outside. Not thinking twice about where he was dragging you to, including daughter, you decided to play it safe. He approved on your choice of ripped jeans, synthetic tank top, and thrown on cardigan once heading off to the car.

The car ride to the mysterious destination was short lived as your boyfriend pulled up into the driveway of his old house. Mitsuki stood waiting by the threshold of the doorway, waving her fingers sweetly to whom you can only assume was you and not her only son. She stepped off the porch once Katsuki shifted the car in park, unlocking the doors as well. His mother reached the side where d/n stayed strapped in her seat and yanked the door open.

"Ah my little princess! How have you been? I missed you so much!" She unbuckled d/n's seat belt and flattened her in a tight hug, squeezing till her eyes popped out. "I can't wait to spend the weekend with you baby girl! Are you excited to have a little fun with grandma?!"

"Calm the fuck down, you're gonna kill her if you keep squeezing!" Katsuki's voice boomed out of the window.

"Oh pipe down you little shit I'm not harming her! Also don't talk to me like that! You're old enough to treat me with some respect by now!"

"SHUT UP YOU OLD HAG! JUST TAKE THE LITTLE GREMLIN AND GO!"

After the heated exchange, Katsuki eventually calmed down and drove the two of you back to the house in complete silence. It was quite a shift in a sense of environment wise. By now d/n would be begging you to make her some pudding or pour her a cup of lemonade, then place yourselves in front of the tv watching a random kids program till evening. Tonight you lend the torch to your boyfriend, allowing whatever devious plan he conjured up to unfold.

Before you could shuffle into your shared bedroom, Katsuki placed his calloused hands onto your cramped shoulders. Merely centimeters from your ear, he laid a chaste kiss on the area beneath it, smiling at your innocent reaction to his sudden actions and nuzzled into the crook of your neck. You smelt the familiar scent of caramel and men’s soap, both of which you undoubtably loved when combined.

“Suki?” Upon hearing his nickname, Katsuki quirked an eyebrow at you. “What’s with all the romantic gestures lately? Cooking my favorite breakfast, the flowers, and our daughter. Don’t get me wrong, I love her! It’s just nice not to worry about if she’ll set the curtains on fire again.”

You felt the vibrations of him chuckling behind you.

“Isn’t it obvious? I just want to fuck the shit out of you,” you sat paralyzed by his bluntness. his tuft hair tickled the underside of your chin, earning him an acute giggle from you. “I’m just kidding, pretty face. I figured you needed a weekend where you just relax and did nothing. Let me do all the work. That’s including getting rid of the brat.”

Shifting in his arms to where you can face him, you can now see the adoration oozing from usual heated glare of his vermillion eyes, the scowl long gone and replaced with a soften feature not so many from the outside can witness. To think this was the man you devoted yourself and love for, to allow him to bare witness anything and everything you endure. He’s a man of showing his compassion through his actions, not lousy words of affirmations that anyone could sputter out and proclaim its love. No, he reflects back everything right with the world, even when you felt the weight of it searing through your system, dragging it down with you. The same explosive blonde awaits patiently by the opening for you to enter, no matter how long it’ll take for you to accept his love. Because he’ll be there. Waiting.

And here he is waiting. In your arms to repeat those three words you made out from watching the movement of his lips.

The words leave your mouth effortlessly, the proclamation hanging in the air between you two.

“I love you too, Katsuki. Thank you so much, for everything.” Like so, you kiss the plump flesh of his lips, the same inflammation of your heart burning as before. The strong muscle of his tongue prods your entrance, practically begging by licking your bottom lip. Katsuki grabbed your chin as gentle as he could muster, titling it for a better leverage to explore your mouth in return. Your hands trailed across the defining shape of his collarbones, rubbing any part of his body so that your fingers remained busy. Both of you hum in satisfaction, relishing in the feeling of the intimate moment. To your disliking, he removes his lips from yours and hovers instead, panting from the mini-make out session seconds ago.

“I’m going to marry you some day, mark my words. So don’t act fucking stupid when I pop the question,” he hotly proclaims, not once removing those piercing red eyes from yours. That’s when you knew he wasn’t bullshitting. If there’s one thing you learned about Katsuki over the years of dating, is that he doesn’t throw out promises in the air nonchalantly without keeping them. You can vaguely hear the ominous sound of wedding bells in your ears.

“Sounds intriguing. I always wanted to see you in a suit and tie.”

“Ya know, maybe someday might be tomorrow-.”

You cut him off with a scorching peck, making his eyes widen and dilate with every given second you laid your lips onto his. “Shut up babe and ravish me already.”

A mischievous grin forms on his mouth as he links his arms around the back of your knees and hoists you over his shoulder. He erupted into fits of laughter after hearing you squeak from the abruptness. The door to your shared bedroom came into view, your boyfriend kicking it with his free foot before entering through the threshold.

“You’re in for a long night sweetheart. Now that our daughter isn’t here, I’m not holding back on anything,” he threatens as he lays you down on the comforter.

Another thing you learned from your relationship. Katsuki is always true to his word.

#mha imagines #bakugou headcanons #bakugou x reader #bakugou x y/n #bnha bakugou #katsuki bakugo x reader #katsuki bakugou x you #mha x reader #bakugou imagine #bakugou fluff #dad!baku #bakugou smut #kacchan #bnha bakugo katsuki #katsukibakugou #bnha katsuki x reader

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ironwoman359 · 3 years

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Completely agree on nagas being underutilized and having a ton of potential. Both as the whumpee and the whumper….

So now I have to know. Which do you prefer…(and maybe why…talk whumpy to me lol)

Naga whumper? Or naga whumpee…

cw: whump, captivity, dehumanization, possessiveness, abuse, torture, angst with little to no comfort

Oh, I am delighted you asked, friend...it's not like I just did a bunch of research on snake health for a bad things happen bingo fic* with a naga whumpee....it's not like doing so gave me MANY more ideas than I was able to fit into that one story...and its not like I have many thoughts on how nagas could fit into the traditional creature whump tropes (that I also was reading and rereading for 'research' while writing We Blankly Stare). This is going under a cut, because, like all my fics, it got longer than I meant it to. (also, to my regular followers who aren't into heavy whump, don't mind me as I go off on a tangent into a totally different fic community; you can skip this one if you need to; at the very least mind the content warnings <3)

SO, nagas. Beautiful creatures. Like centaurs, 'human' on the top and snake on the bottom. SO much lovely whump potential, either as whumpers or whumpees, but lets focus on the whumpee side for now. In no particular order...

Pet Whump:

Decorative collars set with jewels that compliment the pattern of their highly polished scales and delicate gold chains weaving their way along their body, equal parts jewelry and restraint. They are highly prized, beautiful things, and what is the point of owning one if not to show it off?

Inviting a crowd to come and watch them feed, demonstrating their dislocating jaws and sharp fangs as they toss rodents to them whole. Bonus angst points if raw meat actually makes your naga whumpee sick, or they can eat raw meat but cooked is better. Just because they look like a snake doesn't mean they eat like one

Is your naga whumpee poisonous? Have their owner remove their fangs or poison glands, leaving them utterly dependent on them for food (and utterly helpless if they do ever manage to escape)

Nagas bred in captivity, so the only life they've ever known is one of imprisonment. Do they even consider freedom as something attainable? Or do their owners have them convinced that they're better off like this?

Lab Whump:

Nagas that are actually human/snake hybrids created in laboratory experiments just to see if it was possible.

Nagas who are kept in order to produce venom, what the venom is for could be anything!

Nagas 'enhanced' with mind and/or body altering drugs or magic to serve in the military as the perfect warrior

Nags used for experiments and drug tests because they are seen as less than human

Torture Whump:

As is the case with most torture whump, the 'why' the whumpee is being tortured isn't really important here. Maybe they have information the whumper wants, maybe the whumper is trying to get revenge or hurt whumpee's team, maybe they're just cruel. This isn't really about the 'why' so much as it is the specific 'hows' that having a whumpee who is part snake provides.

Pulling/cutting off scales, pulling out or filing down fangs, clipping or tearing off claws (a creature whump classic)

Naga specific (this is more of a lizard thing than a snake thing, but nagas aren’t real, we make the rules here!) body part removal: cutting off the tail! It doesn’t matter that it grows back, it still hurts every time. (or maybe the tail doesn’t grow back, and the naga is left unable to ‘walk’ properly)

Rough iron collars around their neck attached to a ball and chain, bonus points if the length of the chain prevents them from rising to their usual 'standing' height.

Hang them from the ceiling with cuffs and chains by their tails; upside down, right-side up, however you choose!

My those snake bodies are long...I wonder how long they can stretch?

I have one word for you: thermoregulation. Reptiles cannot regulate their own body heat, they are dependent on their environment. This gives us a whole HOST of reptile-specific torture techniques:

temperature shock: dump them in freezing water or spray them with a high-pressure hose. Unpleasant for any kind of whumpee, for the naga whumpee this has the added bonus of being fatal very quickly if they aren't warmed up.

It's not good for a snake to be too HOT either, they need to cool their bodies off just as often as they need to warm them up (don't quote me precisely on that, snake tumblr). A whumper who keeps their naga under bright, hot lights nearly constantly so they're dehydrated, covered in blisters, and/or always feverish (can a naga get a fever? idk, up to you. snakes don't, but snakes don't have human torsos. we can be wishy washy with health issues)

So extreme heat and extreme cold are bad, but did you know that (while it's breed specific) most snakes lose its ability to thermoregulate at around 70 degrees Fahrenheit? When their body temperature drops below this (but not so low that we're in hypothermia territory), their movements are sluggish, they cannot/will not eat, and it is very easy for them to develop infections, scale rot, all sorts of problems. Does the whumper keep them in low temperatures to make them weak and pliable in their hands, easy to control? Does the whumper use these conditions as a punishment for bad behavior? Or give reprieve from them as a reward for good behavior? There’s just SO much that can be done with temperature alone! It’s one of the things that sets nagas apart from other creatures and THAT is one of the most criminally underused aspects, in my oh so humble opinion!

Other Fun Concepts:

Nagas with their tails trapped under rubble, unable to pull themselves free.

Nagas kept in a cage that's far too small for them, their body wrapped up so tightly they can barely move.

Did you know that when a snake's body temperature is too low, it can't digest its food? And that if it does eat something and then doesn't have the energy to digest it properly, it will either instinctually regurgitate that food back up or run the risk of the food literally rotting in its stomach? Take this knowledge into literally any of the pet or torture scenarios and you have some A+ snake specific whump

Tiny nagas! Like the western hognose snake or the ringneck snake, these little guys can fit in the palm of your hand! Apply literally any previously listed scenario to your tiny naga for instant fantasy g/t whump! also vore...that's not my scene but it was one of like, two things i found while looking for naga whump on tumblr earlier, so I feel obligated to mention it.

Giant nagas, YOU can fit in THEIR hands. Does that make them the whumper, or still the whumpee? You decide!

Water nagas! combine mer whump with naga whump and you’ve got a water snake to hurt!

Nagas with scale rot, respiratory infections, kinks in their spine, or other snake health issues, either from mistreatment from a whumper or natural causes.

As you can tell, I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately, lol. I hope you enjoyed, and if anyone writes anything based off these, I’d love to see it! Also, HAVE I been considering making a whump sideblog for awhile? yes. Did writing this post convince me to finally do it? Also yes. So I'll be over at @ironwhumper359 if you'd like to talk more whump with me, I’d be delighted to have you :)

*if you would like to read said bad things happen bingo fic, know that while it is labelled Sanders Sides, because that’s the fandom I mainly write it, the first chapter only has one character from the series in it and is honestly much more of an original whump piece than it is a fanfic. The second and third chapters are more fandom specific (though you’re of course still welcome to read them even if you’re not a sanders sides fan), but that first one can be read as stand-alone whump!

#whump #naga whump #naga whumpee #pet whump #dehumanization #creature whump #whump prompts #lab whump #torture tw #angst #asks and answers #simplygrimly

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mothmannnnn · 3 years

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Hello sexy beautiful awesome cool swag mutuals, Gar asked me to finish a fic they wrote and we wanted to share :p Read at your own risk <3

If luck—a notion he’d only allowed himself to entertain after meeting James Kirk—really did exist, then it was only logical to assume its opposite existed as well. Bad luck.

Spock couldn’t think up the logistics of the situation he and Kirk had found themselves in: why he was injured on a too-cold planet, how they had lost their communicators, how they had run into the sort of intelligent life they weren’t supposed to interact with—why they now sat, shoulders pressed together, inside a hollow alien tree. In his current, less than stellar state, he wondered if it was statistically possible to have this much bad luck.

They were able to elude their assailants through Kirk’s resourcefulness. He had eyed the hiding place while they were running from their assailants, an area near the roots they had just been able to squeeze past and fit inside. Spock vaguely wondered if the tree had rotten out, or if a creature similar to the earth woodpecker inhabited the planet and had once called the space they now sat in its home. He wondered why the wood on this planet was a pale shade of blue, the trees even more massive than the redwoods, and how this miraculous life could happen somewhere so cold. He wondered about the probability of his survival. Spock ghosted his fingers over his bloodstained abdomen.

“Spock . . . Spock.” Kirk had his hand on his shoulder and was looking into his eyes, and Spock had to rip himself from his own mind. “You’re shaking,” He said. Spock was suddenly aware of the almost violent tremor of his own body, of the biting cold on his ears and hands and everywhere except where Kirk had his leg pressed up against his.

“I’m very cold, Captain, and I believe—” he had to stop himself, he had to stop shaking, he had to gain back some control. He took a breath—too deep—and pain blossomed in his side, time tripping over itself. It was so cold out. “I believe I may be bleeding internally, from the injuries I sustained.” he said.

Kirk was leaning over him then, eyes wide as they searched over him, one hand on Spock’s shoulder and the other hovering hesitantly over the blood stains on his uniform. “How bad is it? is there anything I can do? Are you—“ Spock grabbed Kirk’s wrist before he could flood him with more questions, before he could touch him and defile his hands with his blood. He didn’t like to see Kirk like this, anxious, and he especially didn’t like that he was the cause.

“I can do something about it but . . . I must focus all my energy on healing myself.” Spock said, finally meeting Kirks eyes. He nodded, his mask of cool command back on.

“The healing trance?” Kirk confirmed.

“Yes but I—” There was too much going on, the cold, the bleeding, the hiding (James Kirk’s thigh pressed against his, hand in his, his worry) “I can’t regulate my body temperature while in the trance, I need some external method of—” Kirk pulled his hand away from Spock’s grip and went for the hem of his own shirt. He’d had it half way up his chest before Spock was able to catch Jim’s shirt and pull it back down. “No captain, you can’t-” Spock started, taken completely off guard but beginning to catch on to what Kirk had been thinking.

“The extra clothing will keep you warm Spock, please just let me—“

“Your body heat is sufficient, Captain,” Spock insisted. Although he knew it was not logical, as Kirk’s body was better equipped to withstand the cold and therefore he would be able to spare the cotton shirt, Spock felt hesitant prioritizing his captain’s comfort below his own.

Kirk looked thoughtful for a minute, his brows furrowing and his hands absentmindedly rubbing his jawline.

Spock was getting delirious—he knew it was due to the increasing loss of blood in his body. He must begin the healing trance as promptly as possible, but a strange, illogical thought wormed itself into his mind. What will Jim do while I am gone?

If they were to be revealed by their assailants, it would be highly unlikely that Jim could fend for himself, and it would be too dangerous to pull himself out of the healing trance.

Before Spock could think of a solution, he felt warm hands around his waist, a strong chest against his, and the point of Jim Kirk’s chin on the crook of his neck.

“Captain, you’ll get blood on your uniform.”

“Tough luck,” was Jim Kirk’s eloquent reply. “We’ll have to be in close proximity for my body heat to do anything for you.”

“Well, I . . .” Spock’s words trailed off, and he was, for perhaps only the second time in his life, at a loss for words.

He found something akin to courage in his deliriousness, pulling away so that he might look Kirk in his eyes. “I do not like showcasing my . . . differences, as compared to you, Captain.” He motioned to the greenness of his blood, slowly darkening and expanding across his abdomen.

“Spock, that is perhaps the most illogical thing you’ve ever said.” Astonishingly, he heard amusement in Jim’s voice, despite their current situation. When he looked over, eyes barely able to open, he saw that his captain’s lips were pulled into a ghost of a smile. His eyebrows, however, were still furrowed with concern. “What does it matter if your ears are pointed or your blood is green? Why would it ever matter to me?” There were unspoken words within that statement, even Spock was able to identify that. But he was not quite able to extract the meaning. Why would it ever matter to me?

“I know it is not logical, but I have always envied the redness in your veins, Jim.” If Kirk had noticed the slip in formalities, he did not reveal it. “Red is the color of vitality, of passion. It is something I will never possess beyond a medicinal diagnoses. But green . . . green is the color of cowardice. Of envy.”

“You’re not speaking any sense, Mr. Spock.”

“There are many things I do not have the courage to tell you, Jim.”

If the silence that followed was indicative of disgust, Spock might have felt shame. But Kirk only lifted one gentle hand to Spock’s cheek, and wiped a tear that he had not known had fallen.

“I’ll be here when you wake up, Spock,” Kirk reassured, prompting him to fall into his healing trance. He could not hold out for much longer. “We’ll get through this, I promise, and . . . when you’re awake, maybe you’ll feel a little more courageous.”

Through their connection, both physical and emotional, Spock could feel the tug of emotions in Kirk’s chest. Stress, worry, regret and surprisingly—the last thing he felt before slipping off to unconsciousness—affection beyond platonic admiration.

He slept.

As promised, Jim was there when he awoke on the Enterprise again. He was still a little bruised, and his lip was split, but other than that, Spock could not discern any permanent physical harm.

“You’re awake,”

Humans had an interesting habit of announcing something that was not in need of announcement.

“I am,” Spock nodded, noticing that he had been relocated to a corner cot in the medical bay. “How long was I in the healing trance?”

Before Kirk could reply, a voice interrupted from the doorway. A booming, slightly southern accent that Spock recognized immediately, despite the state of his foggy memory. “A week,” Doctor McCoy said. “And what a hell of a week!”

“Hello, Doctor,” Spock greeted the newcomer.

McCoy went on as if he had not heard him, muttering, “I thought Jim might go mad and strangle me! Waiting in here like some wartime widow, what a hassle!”

He went on like this, spewing good-natured insults until he exited the room, holding Spock’s file (which he presumed was what McCoy had originally came in the room for).

Kirk looked at Spock, the tips of his ears red. This blush, which creeped up his neck, was what prompted Spock to remember the last conversation they had.

The color of vigor. Of passion. The courage that Spock had lacked, until, in a lapse of judgment, he had admitted his best-kept secret: his feelings for James Kirk.

“I’m glad you’re awake, Mr. Spock—even if Bones isn’t,” the tone of his voice was light, nothing remarkably fond, but his hand reached down and gently held Spock’s.

The action was innocent enough, Spock knew. He had seen many humans hold each other’s hands for comfort, for solace. But to himself, a Vulcan, the intimate action made his own ears glow green.

“It’s okay if you don’t have the courage right now, Spock,” Jim continued. He smiled, and Spock found himself wanting to do the same. “You were very brave on that planet.”

In a rare show of physical affection, Spock lifted Kirk’s hands to his lips, and kissed the soft palm.

Understanding the meaning of this action, Kirk in turn lifted Spock’s hand to his own mouth, pressing a warm kiss on the back of his hand.

“When you’re ready, Mr. Spock,” Kirk smiled, “I think we should take a long shore leave—somewhere warmer, preferably.”

Spock squeezed the hands still holding his, hoping that this seemingly modest reaction could begin to express all the feelings he had for Jim Kirk. That perhaps Jim might feel, through his own human senses, Spock’s unfailing devotion to him.

“Yes, Captain,” he said. “I would like that very much.”

#this was fun to write #hiii gar i hope this did you justice #oh my god if any of my non trek mutuals see this i am sooo sorry #i use so many em dashes its crazy #i live and die for em dashes #they are the best punctuation i think #anyways gar wrote the first half and i wrote the last half #and also edited a little #omg gar x moth collab af #this is mostly unedited i am sorry #eep okay now i am going to tag stuff #star trek #tos #spock #kirk #spirk #uh that's it i think #bye <3 #k/s

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mammonsimpwashere · 3 years

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✨ 𝕄𝕒𝕞𝕞𝕠𝕟 ✨

This is a little story I made about you stealing mammon’s jacket and how he reacts!!

Devils are far less susceptible to the cold, unlike humans they are able to regulate their body temperature. This in turn means that the house of lamentation is always on the cold side however today it seems to be far more cold than usual. You can’t help but wish you had a clean hoodie which you could put on as your teeth start to relentlessly chatter.

Without noticing you think to yourself about how warm and cozy mammon looks when he’s in his brown jacket. With you being overly cold, these thoughts had made you want to wear it. You have always wanted to try it on, but the fact that you’re cold just made you want to steal it and wear it even more, still though, you know that Mammon may be an idiot however it is also unusual to leave his property unattended and out in the open. After all he is greedy, what’s his is his and he won’t share. Not that you can blame him.

And with that last concluding thought you decide you’re in fact going to steal his jacket or should you say.. borrow. After all he won’t get to mad, right??

You make your way over to his room and ever so softly knock on his old door, the echoing of the faint taps are met with a welcoming silence. Whenever you knock mammon always answers back, so the quietness had only confirmed his absence. Knowing this is your only chance you carefully open the door, gritting your teeth hoping to not make a single sound. You take a step into his room still being overly cautious about making a sound. Scanning the room, you see his jacket perched on the side of his sofa and your face immediately lights up.

Still standing in the doorway , only analysing the possibility of this all going wrong your heart starts to race, after subtly poking your head out of the door frame only to realise that no one is in the corridor , you regain your cool and continue forward. Cautiously walking on the tips of your feet, preying to not make any unnecessary noise, you eventually reach the sofa. You take one look at the jacket and can’t help but to smile.

Now holding the worn out jacket you can smell the faint smell of mammon’s cologne that he always wears, however instead of it’s usually overpowering and insulting smell which comes from him dousing himself in it every morning. The smell is more faint and pleasant to the nose. It almost makes you miss him in a sense. Looking at the size of this jacket, what is a tight but comfortable fit for mammon clearly will be a comfortably baggy mess for you. Having claimed his clothes, you exit his room still keeping the same composure as when you entered.

‘Good job no one saw me walking in there’ you say to yourself as you knew near enough all of the brothers would have given you a lecture on how disrespectful it was for you to disregard mammons privacy. But now, you finally have his jacket. No one can stop you.

Hiding his jacket in your room you get bored and start to think of things to do. Being as mischievous as always you think to yourself, why not surprise him. You rarely wear makeup if ever but you’re surprisingly great at applying the stuff. So needless to say, you start applying it and then move onto curling your hair. All that was left to do was to get ready.

His jacket , although being leather wasn’t hard nor uncomfortable, in fact it was the complete opposite, you now realise why he likes it so much. The difference in size between you two is very apparent as whats a comfortable fit for him completely hides your hands. It makes you look even smaller than you are.

Being overly eager to see him get possessive over his clothes, you head out of your room.

‘Oi, where were you’. This sudden voice startled you causing you to jump and look backwards. The person talking to you was none other than mammon. His usual resting bitch face soon turned a bright shade of red as he became flustered seeing you in in his jacket.

‘I- w-where did you get that’ he stuttered looking off to the side. ‘What do you mean?’ You teased him, positioning your head right in front of his so he had no choice but to maintain eye contact.

He notices that you’re wearing makeup and with this he becomes fidgety. It’s clear that he likes you. But he just can’t tell you.

‘Y-you look nice, is it a special accession or something cuz the great mammon here didn’t know’ he says turning an even brighter hue of red.

He had never noticed it before, but now he has he couldn’t help but thinking about the size difference between you two. Seeing you appear so small in his jacket made him want to embrace you and protect you. Instead of him becoming possessive over his things, he became pleased at the thought of you even wanting to take it.

You place your hand on his face very softly and move his face so it meets yours. ‘Hey mammon, your cheeks are very hot. Are you feeling ok?’ You ask. Pretending to be oblivious as to why that is. He looks down in embarrassment and says it’s nothing. He’s so cute, he looks just like a child.

He suddenly pulls you into a hug, wrapping his strong arms around you. Covering his face. ‘You look real pretty today. I just wanted you to know that’ you can hear his heartbeat fasten as he says this. You knew what to do. So without hesitation you did it.

You went on your tiptoes and gave him a soft kiss, while still hugging him.

He pulls you in closer and with the most genuine smile states , you can wear my clothes anytime, don’t even bother asking m’kay?

#obey me #obey me mammon #obey me shall we date #shall we date mammon #mammon x you #mammon x reader

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chevrolangels · 4 years

Text

though the stars walk backward

#24: You’re my ex but I think I still have feelings for you, 4.1k

From this prompt list

For @princessjimmynovak This was requested approximately a million years ago and I finally finished it!! Happy belated birthday darling 💜

Feat. Space Ex-Boyfriends who are bad at talking to each other. So, canon. But in space. (Dean has always wanted to be an astronaut, lbr)

read on ao3

“New crop of cadets coming in today.”

“I know.”

Charlie bites into her apple, munching as she scans her screen.

“Hope they’re better than the last ones. Half of ‘em couldn’t tell the difference between a spectrometer and an ammeter.”

Castiel doesn’t comment. He’s too on edge to indulge Charlie today, so he just shrugs, swiveling his chair back in front of the control panel.

Everything’s on autopilot, like always, but he likes to check the nav-console by hand, every once in a while, if nothing but to prove his usefulness. Wouldn't do to have the computer shift a few degrees without anyone noticing and end up halfway to Alpha Centauri.

“I mean, what do they think we do up here? Run pretty tests for fun?” Charlie continues. “Like, one leak is the difference between life and death.”

Castiel makes a noncommittal noise and starts typing in the complicated sequence with his stylus, the starmap projected before him, their course pulsing with gentle blue light.

“I mean, they’re gone for all that time, least the Academy can do is make sure they’re prepared.”

Castiel bites his tongue, typing with perhaps a little more force than is necessary. He loves Charlie, but her ranting is really starting to get to him. Castiel might be the best pilot this side of the Pleiades, but hey. He’s only human.

“If they send me one more programmer who asks me how to do an abstraction, I’m going to―”

“Charlie, do you mind?” Castiel snaps. “I’m trying to concentrate here.”

He regrets it immediately. Charlie does go quiet, but makes a thoroughly overdramatic roll of her chair into Castiel’s eyeline. She raises an eyebrow.

“Somethin’ you wanna share with the class there, bud?”

Castiel exhales, rolling his shoulders.

“Sorry. I just...need to focus.”

“...Right.”

A decidedly sneaky look crosses her face, one that Castiel knows spells trouble.

She leans forward, propping her chin up on her hands.

“Is it because you gotta do the whole ‘Captain Thing’ later?” She asks. “Shake hands, greet the greets, that whole deal?”

Castiel acquiesces.

“Partly.”

He quickly finishes the rest of the code and enters it into the nav-console, sinking back in his seat. Charlie purses her lips.

“And I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact that the teaching staff is coming back, huh.”

Castiel keeps his face carefully neutral, even as he feels the back of his neck grow hot. He fiddles with the stylus in his hands, turning it over and over again.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Uh-huh.”

Charlie taps her chin, looking thoughtful.

“What’s it been, two years?” She whistles, drawing it out. “Long time.”

Castiel just grunts. He should be getting up, to change into his uniform for the new batch of arrivals, but he makes no attempt to move.

“Dean’s coming back, too, right?”

Castiel snaps the stylus in half.

Charlie grins.

Castiel looks down at his hand, shoving the broken stylus into his pocket.

“If he is, I haven’t heard anything about it,” he says loftily. “And whether he does or not certainly doesn’t affect me.”

Charlie tilts her head.

“Didn’t they send the transfer roster last week?”

Castiel glares at her. She smirks back, giving him a cheeky wink.

Castiel abruptly pushes back from the console, standing.

“I have to go change,” he says shortly.

Once he gets to his quarters and the door slides closed behind him, Castiel sinks back against it, dropping his head in his hands.

Two years. Two years since Castiel chose to stay, and he chose to leave. Two years, of long lonely nights in front of the computer, of avoiding the Observation Deck, of throwing himself into his work. Two years in which Castiel thought he’d successfully ridded every last trace of Dean Winchester from his life.

After that night, Castiel had thrown away everything he’d ever given him. Every trinket, every gift, every scrap of paper―pathetic trophies of infatuation that Castiel had saved like a fool, pressed between the pages of his books.

The rest of the ship noticed, of course, because how could they not―Charlie, especially, had been particularly persistent in trying to get Castiel to tell her what happened. But Castiel resolutely refused to talk about him, and glowered sufficiently at any mention of his name that eventually people just learned to stop bringing him up.

But time marches ever onward, and the training cycle at the Academy is complete. The institution that Dean fled to in the first place is now spitting him back out, thrusting him back into Castiel’s life.

Castiel presses the heels of his hands to his eyes. How is he going to stand in front of nearly three hundred people and shake his hand? Just the mention of his name made Castiel want to throw something, bringing back all those memories Castiel tried so hard to forget. It may have been two years, but everything that made the man named Dean Winchester the best part of his life is still imprinted in Castiel’s memory, like a brand.

It’s times like this when Castiel wishes he could be like one of Charlie’s computers, erasing all information at the touch of a button. There would be no pain, no memories―like he had never existed in the first place.

Castiel exhales, looking down at his hands.

He’ll just have to make it quick. It really wouldn’t do for the captain to start a fistfight in front of the entire crew.

Roughly thirty minutes later, Castiel finds himself standing stiffly at the end of the receiving line of officers, the collar of his uncomfortable dress uniform cutting into his neck. Something must be off with the temperature regulators in the receiving deck, because he’s sweating, a few locks of hair slipping loose from his hat. He attempts to comb them back into place until Naomi hisses at him to stop fidgeting.

Charlie is beside him as Chief Engineering Officer. She cranes her neck above the crowd, looking at the small group that’s just disembarked from the transport ship.

“Showtime,” she says, adjusting her gloves.

Castiel closes his eyes briefly, breathing in. He can do this.

The new ones pass through first, freshly graduated, young and starry-eyed. Castiel can appreciate their eager enthusiasm. It’s important work they do here on the ship, and they need the best crew to make it possible. They shake his hand vigorously, hopefully interpreting his tight-lipped stare as stoic strength.

Then, the officers.

Hannah, who Castiel has always liked, gives him a warm smile and clasps his hands, telling him how much they missed him. Castiel agrees with the sentiment, but he can barely focus during their conversation, continually darting his eyes towards the end of the line.

The procession inches forward, painfully slow. Cain, Chief Military Strategist, is next, then Billie, and Linda Tran. Crowley, a truly despicable human being, but perhaps the most brilliant Flight Engineer Castiel’s ever worked with, passes with a slimy smile―and then, a face Castiel hasn’t seen in a long time.

“Captain Novak,” Sam says warmly, reaching out to shake his hand. “It’s been a while.”

Castiel smiles back, unable to help himself.

“It has,” he agrees, taking his hand. Despite whatever may have happened between him and his brother, Castiel always liked Sam. “I can’t tell you how much we’ve missed you during your absence.”

Sam nods, dropping Castiel’s hand.

“Believe me, we missed it here, too,” he says, smiling. “You never know how good you have it until you have to spend time way out in the boonies.”

Castiel chuckles. He remembers. The time at the Academy might be necessary, but it certainly couldn’t be called comfortable.

Sam turns, indicating the cadets behind them.

“We’ve got a good group for you here, Cas,” he says, dropping the nickname with easy familiarity. “I think you’ll be happy with them.”

“Good to hear,” Castiel replies. “I’m sure they benefited from having you as a teacher.”

Sam shrugs, ever modest.

Naomi clears her throat from behind them, not-so-subtly encouraging him to move it along. Sam smiles and gives Castiel a small little salute, moving away.

Castiel sighs, tugging at his collar. To his left, he hears a low chuckle.

“Still hate that uniform, huh?”

Castiel stiffens.

He’d know that voice anywhere.

He slowly lowers his hand, looking up into the face he tried two years to forget.

“Hey, Cas,” Dean says softly, smiling.

His eyes are bright, shining, like he wants to be here. Funny. Castiel seems to remember he went halfway across the star system just to get away from him.

He extends a hand, holding it out for Castiel to shake.

Castiel clears his throat, but doesn’t move.

“Dr. Winchester,” he replies stiffly. “Welcome back.”

Dean chuckles.

“Oh, right,” he says sheepishly. “I gotta call you ‘Captain Novak’, now, huh? Sorry.”

He looks up, that soft smile returning.

“Old habits, I guess,” he murmurs.

His hand is still extended, in the distance between them. Naomi must be practically foaming at the mouth at such a lack of decorum. Castiel couldn’t care less.

Dean looks exactly the same, perhaps a few more lines around his eyes, still that perfect shade of green. Dean's eyes always reminded Castiel of Earth.

Dean seems to be thinking along the same lines. He looks Castiel up and down, gaze lingering for a moment on the few locks of hair Castiel knows must still be stubbornly escaping from beneath the brim of his hat.

“You haven’t changed at all,” Dean continues. “Even after two years.”

“And three months, six days,” Castiel says coolly.

Dean’s smile fades a little.

“Right.”

He pulls back his hand, awkwardly picking at the edge of the hat in his hands.

Castiel’s heart is beating wildly, but he keeps his face still as stone. Dean shifts uncomfortably, then seems to make a decision.

He leans in, lowering his voice.

“Look, Cas, you know I always hated this formal junk,” he murmurs. “Can we talk later, maybe?”

He sounds so cavalier, so oblivious, and Castiel hates it.

“Catch up?” Dean asks. “Away from all these people?”

Castiel gives him his coldest stare.

“I don’t think so, Dr. Winchester,” he says sharply. “Running this ship is a full time job.”

Dean blinks, and he stares at him, looking like he’s just been slapped across the face. The monster of heartache and pain inside Castiel roars with a vicious triumph.

“I have enough on my plate as it is,” he continues dismissively. “I simply don’t have time to indulge every junior officer who wants to waste my time.”

He straightens, looking away disinterestedly.

“You’d do best to remember that.”

For a moment, Dean doesn’t speak, merely staring at Castiel, his mouth open in disbelief.

Then he remembers himself, and with a glance at Naomi, he stands up straight, placing his officer’s hat back on his head.

“Yeah,” Dean mutters, lowering his eyes. “Well.”

There’s an awkward cough from Charlie to his left. Castiel ignores her.

“It’s good to see you, again, Cas,” Dean murmurs. “Really.”

Somehow, he makes it sound genuine.

He exits the platform, quickly disappearing into the crowd.

Castiel watches Dean go an uneasy curl in his throat. The brief flare of vengeful satisfaction is already leeching away, leaving him feeling brittle and hollow.

Naomi is already busy shooing the officers into the reception hall, for the welcome banquet. Charlie finds Castiel’s arm and squeezes it, her eyes sympathetic.

“Cas?” She asks quietly. “You okay?”

Castiel clenches his jaw.

“Think I might have to get back to you on that."

Later, after the banquet, after three hours of restless tossing and turning, Castiel slowly gets up, not bothering with shoes.

Wandering the hallways used to be his favorite pastime. The quiet, the stillness. He still does it, on occasion, when he finds sleep isn’t easy in coming. The lights that try to mimic some semblance of a day and night cycle are dimmed low, the halls empty, most retired to their chambers.

Castiel makes his way up to the Observation Deck, taking a brief look around. There’s no one there, no one to spy on the captain of their ship, stealing away in the night for some much needed solitude. He walks the ramp to the very top part of the observatory, leaning his arms on the handrail. Castiel used to spend hours here. He would sit and watch the stars turn, feeling at once very small and very infinite. He sits now, staring out at the vast darkness before him. It’s utterly quiet, the electric hum of the ship the only sound in the gloom.

Unbidden, his thoughts turn to the last conversation he had here.

Castiel had just learned he had been chosen to be the next Captain, a highly selective process that he had stressed about for weeks. The first person he wanted to tell was Dean.

But Dean had come with news of his own.

A teaching job at the Academy. Highly prestigious, second probably only to Castiel’s role―but that meant―

“Two years,” Dean said to his hands, his voice flat. “That’s how long I’d be gone.”

Castiel felt his brief taste of happiness deflate like a suit after a spacewalk.

“Two years?” He echoed, his tongue thick in his mouth. Dean nodded mutely.

“That’s…”

Castiel bit his lip.

“Wow,” is all he managed.

“Yeah,” Dean muttered.

There was a long moment where neither of them spoke.

“So…”

Castiel hardly dared to say it.

“I’m guessing you knew that when you applied,” he said flatly.

Dean nodded mutely.

“Didn’t really account for you becoming the Captain,” he muttered.

Anger flared within Castiel.

“What, because you think I wouldn’t get it?”

“No!” Dean said immediately, looking up. “God, no, Cas, of course not. Why would you think that?”

“I’m thinking a lot of things right now,” Castiel shot back.

Dean shut his mouth angrily.

“I guess...I guess it’s just hitting me how long two years really is,” he said finally.

Castiel sucked in a breath, stunned.

“You’re not serious,” he whispered. Dean dragged a hand down his face, avoiding his eyes.

“I don’t know, Cas!” He said, voice rising in the quiet. “I mean...you’ll have your job, Cas, I'll have mine...who knows if you’ll have any time for me―”

“Oh, I won’t have time for you?” Castiel repeated scathingly. God, he should have known, it’s just like Dean―shove the blame off himself and project it onto Castiel instead of owning his feelings like an adult.

“Just say you don’t want to be with me and get it over with,” he snapped.

“Cas…” Dean started.

Castiel couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t believe this was happening.

Dean sighed, breath shaky.

“I―”

Castiel looked up.

He saw the look in Dean’s eyes and he didn’t let him finish. He didn’t let him break his heart.

He ran like a coward.

Castiel wipes angrily at his eyes, banishing the memory. He can’t change the past, so he might as well not dwell on it.

He looks up, at the wilderness of the stars. They shimmer gently against the blank expanse, his constant companions. Castiel can tell you the distance between Betelguese and Rigel, can calculate the time it would take to travel to Sirius and back, but he could never navigate his own life so surely.

If only humans could be as constant as the Heavens.

Behind him, the floor creaks softly. Castiel goes still.

“Hey, Cas,” Dean murmurs.

Castiel turns, glancing over his shoulder.

Dean is standing at the end of the platform, in his sleep pants and shirt. He looks so different out of his uniform. Softer. More like himself.

“Dean,” Castiel says, unable to stop the name from coming to his lips.

Dean responds with a bashful smile, one hand twisting nervously into the hem of his shirt.

“Figured I'd find you here."

He glances out at the stars, then back to Castiel.

“You mind if I join you?”

Castiel swallows, but looks away, saying nothing.

Dean seems to take that as permission, and sits, legs hanging over the edge of the deck, next to Castiel.

There once was a time when they’d sit close enough for their knees to knock, their hands lacing over the railing as Dean told stories, weaving grand tales of the constellations and their histories, while Castiel listened, enraptured.

Now the distance of that memory feels vast, lightyears away. They’re both quiet, not speaking a word. The silence is thin, fragile as glass.

“Cas―”

So Dean will be the one to break it.

He pauses, brow furrowing as he searches for words. Castiel bristles, waiting for it.

“Look,” Dean says, turning to face him. “I get it. You don’t want anything to do with me. But―”

“You’re right,” Castiel interrupts fiercely. “I don’t.”

Dean goes silent beside him. When Castiel finally musters the courage to look up, Dean is staring at him, hopeless and broken.

“Can you at least let me explain?” His voice comes out low and hoarse.

Castiel is torn. Half of him melts, seeing Dean so desperate. But the other half, the rational part of him that remembers the danger of falling for Dean Winchester cautions him, telling him the smartest thing he can do right now is walk away, and never open his heart again.

He lowers his head, exhaling heavily.

“I can’t,” he mutters. “Dean, I just…can’t.”

“You’re angry,” Dean says softly. Castiel scoffs.

“You’re damn right I'm angry,” he mutters. “And I don’t care about any half-assed apology you have for me, not now. Too little, too late.”

He moves back from the railing, pushing himself up. Tears are starting to come to his eyes, hot and bitter, and he’ll be damned if he’ll let Dean see him cry.

“Cas, wait―”

He reaches out, grabbing his hand.

Castiel freezes, rooted to the spot. Dean is frozen too, looking down at their joined hands. He doesn’t let go, though.

“Just...slow down, will ya?” Dean says, and there’s a hint of a laugh there, the way he always sounded when he would talk Castiel off the ledge. But now, it only ignites the rage inside him, and Castiel rips his arm from Dean’s grasp, whirling on him.

“No!” Castiel yells, shattering the silence. “You left, and you don’t get to do this now, you don’t get to come waltzing back into my life like everything’s fine―”

Dean’s eyes widen, he holds up his hands.

“Cas―”

“You broke up with me, remember?”

“No, I didn’t, Cas, will you shut up for two seconds and listen?”

Surprisingly, Castiel does. He blinks, slightly stunned at Dean’s words.

What is he talking about?

“Look,” Dean says quickly, probably to prevent Castiel from shouting again. “I only applied to the stupid Academy because Sammy was too―he was freaking out about the process, so I did it with him, just to show him it was nothing. He’s the smart one, so never in a million years did I think they’d choose me, too.”

Castiel crosses his arms, huffing under his breath. Even if he does hate him right now, it always hurts to hear Dean undersell himself.

“The moment I found out, all I wanted to do was talk to my best friend about how fucking scared I was.” Dean sighs. “And then you said you were picked to be Captain, and it all just...seemed too much.”

He looks down, twisting his hands.

“I panicked. God—somehow had it in my mind that the minute I told you you wouldn’t want to be with me, that there wouldn’t be any room in your life for me anymore. And seeing your face in that moment, you were so excited, and then it just slid off your face…"

Castiel remembers. Shit, he had been so happy, so proud—and when Dean told him…

He’d never been good at hiding his feelings, not with Dean.

He turns over their last conversation in his mind and all at once it seems to click, now that he knows what Dean must have thought.

“I jumped to conclusions,” Dean admits quietly. “I was...so afraid you wouldn’t want to do the long distance thing for two years so I….kind of...let you break us up before I could.”

Castiel stares at him, a painful bubble of emotion rising in his throat. Oh.

Dean continues.

“If anything, I wanted you to ask me to stay.” He lowers his head, dragging a hand through his short hair. “Which was wrong. I get that now.”

He looks up, huffing out a feeble laugh.

“Believe me, Cas,” he says lowly. “It took me all of about an hour to realize how badly I fucked up. But by that time the solar flares were surging and we had to go.”

Dean bites at his lip.

“I looked for you. I tried. But you had locked yourself away in a meeting and I didn’t get to say goodbye. You didn’t let me,” he finishes, a sad bitter note in his voice.

Castiel cannot speak, in shock. He never knew. He’d always thought...after that conversation, that Dean had left without so much as a glance back.

“You…”

He eventually trails off. He has no words.

Dean takes a tentative step forward.

“And you know what it’s like out there. The distances are too far, so they restrict communication.” He shrugs, a slight smirk tugging at his lips. “Doesn’t mean I didn’t try, though.”

“What?” Castiel asks.

“I tried to send transmissions back,” Dean says, rushing out the words. “Every day for a month. They kept telling me personal messages weren’t allowed. I even tried to break into the control center after hours.”

“Dean,” Castiel breathes, awed and horrified all at once. “You didn’t.”

Dean chuckles.

“Nearly got myself tossed out of the airlock for that one.”

His teeth return to his lip again, his green eyes hesitant.

“Sam said I was crazy. I just told him he’d never been in love.”

Castiel's throat goes dry.

They’d never said, not even before Dean left. But Castiel knew he was. Only love leaves that big and jagged of a hole.

“That’s why,” he says softly. “Why I never heard from you the whole two years.”

“And three months, and six days,” Dean says quietly.

Castiel bites his lip.

“Yeah,” Dean says softly. “I was counting, too.”

He sighs, spreading his hands.

“So, yeah. I messed up. And I get it if you never want to talk to me again, I just―”

Dean never finishes his speech because he doesn't need to. In three swift steps, Castiel has reached him and pulled him in by the front of his shirt.

Dean makes a soft noise of surprise as Castiel presses their lips together, but he quickly gets on board, pulling Castiel in by his waist, kissing him back. And he no longer needs to dream about Dean’s warmth, his lips underneath his, the dry rough touch of his palm coming to cup Castiel’s cheek. He’s here, and he’s real, and he’s never going to let him get away again.

Dean pulls back slightly, pressing his forehead against Castiel’s

“Damn,” he breathes. “I missed that.”

Castiel tightens his grip.

“Dean, I’m so sorry,” he whispers.

“Yeah,” Dean chuckles. “So am I.”

He licks his lips, looking down at Castiel’s.

“I was an idiot,” he murmurs, and the sound rumbles through his chest. Castiel shivers.

“I should have just told you,” Dean finishes, shaking his head slightly.

“Yes,” Castiel says, bumping their noses together. “You should have.”

Dean laughs, and it’s possibly the most beautiful sound Castiel’s ever heard.

“There’s the asshole I remember.”

They both grin, just basking in their closeness, breathing quietly.

“So.”

Castiel clears his throat.

“So, this whole time, we wanted to be with each other and we just...weren’t.”

Dean chuckles.

“Sounds like it.”

“Wow.”

Castiel shakes his head.

“We’re a couple of dumbasses.”

Dean laughs again.

“Sums up the last fifteen years of us knowing each other.” He reaches out tentatively, fingers brushing Castiel’s. “Don’t you think?”

Castiel smiles, turning his hand up so Dean can thread their fingers together. He knows they so much they still have to say, so much to catch up on to fix everything that’s broken between them.

By a backdrop of stars, Dean kisses him once more, and well, that’s as good a start as any.

#requested approximately five million years ago #and it was your birthday yesterday ahhh!!!!#HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!#hope you like it!!!! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧#destiel #my writing #ficlet #yeah i made it a space au bc i can #fight me #au #destielficlets

181 notes · View notes

tealin · 4 years

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Temperatures

As always, when you see one of these posts pop up you can head straight over to twirlynoodle.com/blog to see it properly formatted and with pictures. Tumblr didn't even take the crosspost last time so I don't know what's going on!

It’s all well and good to share photos of Antarctica – after all, it is a beautiful place, and we are predominantly a visual species. The photos can give you a sense of what it looks like, but not what it feels like. If people know anything about Antarctica, it’s that it’s cold. But how cold? And what kind of cold?

I cannot speak to the full range of Antarctic weather. I was down for exactly a month, in early summer, and aside from the first week, the weather was unusually calm and mild. To my great disappointment, I didn't see a single blizzard! But I did get enough to compare the feel of Antarctica with other places I have been, and I hope that by making those comparisons here, I will bring you a little closer to understanding quite literally what it feels like to be there.

Temperatures are misleading. A number can only give you an impression of what one might actually feel when one steps out the door. Humidity, sunshine, and wind are external factors that affect the perception of temperature; this can be further influenced by how much sleep or food you've had, BMI, resting metabolism, your accustomed climate, where you've just come from – so, 6°C can feel different from one day to the next, or to two different people standing side by side.

There are roughly two types of cold: dry and damp. The influential factor is water, because it takes a tremendous amount of energy to make water change temperature – this is why it takes so much power to boil a kettle, and why we bring hot water bottles to bed instead of hot gravel bottles. In dry environments, there is less water vapour in the air to suck up the heat coming off your body, so you get to keep more of it for yourself. It may be well below freezing, but you will feel the cold merely as a sensation on your skin, where it meets the air, and not something that goes right through you. Damp cold, because of the energy-hungry water in the air, feels a lot colder. It’s not enough merely to cover your skin, you need layers of fabrics that have moisture-repelling properties (wool is key; cotton is useless). Your precious body heat will leak out through any weak point in your clothing. Because of their different properties, dry air can be much colder than damp air and yet feel more comfortable. In my experience, damp cold is the worst when it’s above freezing, because below freezing the air can’t hold so much water. Damp climates, however, tend not to get much below freezing, so when people from damp climates imagine very cold temperatures, they imagine the insidious cold they know, only much much worse. It’s not necessarily like that.

Even the objective numerical value of a temperature presents a problem: my historical sources, and the United States of America, report temperatures in Fahrenheit, while the rest of the world operates in Celsius. Scientists prefer the metric system, but McMurdo is an American base, so it's functionally bilingual. I tend to think in Celsius, but as the historical record was in °F and I wanted to be able to compare what I was experiencing with what my guys experienced, I paid more attention to °F while I was down there. In this post, I will report actual temperatures in both, so you can look at whichever one you understand best.

When I left Britain in mid-October, we had been having a very mild autumn, after a hot summer. My hopes for hardening up a little on the way to Antarctica were dashed when Vancouver, though objectively colder, felt merely fresh and delightful, I assume because it was unseasonably dry. LA is always dry in the autumn and usually hot, so that was no surprise; Christchurch however was much warmer than expected, and because it wasn't as dry as LA, felt even hotter. After several days' delay there, I feared my blood was much too thin to be hurtled into ice and snow.

It is regulation to wear one's Extreme Cold Weather gear on the plane to McMurdo. Aware that I'd just had a fortnight of heat to thin my blood, and that they were just coming out of a cold snap down there, I was only too happy to take this precaution. When the plane landed, everyone piled on their balaclavas and tuques, and when the door opened, an icy-looking fog formed as our pent-up breaths met the cold air from outside. Here we go, I thought. As I approached the gangway I braced myself for the smart of cold air on exposed skin and the stiletto keenness as I inhaled, but . . .

. . . it was fine.

In fact, it was so fine that when I was allowed to change out of my ECW, I put on my street shoes, not even my cold-weather hiking boots. I knew dry cold from Utah and Alberta, but I was coming to understand that in an Antarctic context, “well it was -20, but it was a dry cold” isn't a joke, it's just a statement of fact. +6°C(42°F) would be miserable in damp Cambridge, but -6°C(21°F) was quite comfortable at McMurdo – if it wasn't windy, one could happily go about without a coat.

One always had a coat to hand, though, because the wind could turn up at any time, and it made a big difference. The first time I went to Cape Evans it was so mild as to be balmy – I was in snow pants because they were required for the snowmobile, but on top I stripped down to just my base layer and a medium-weight sweater, and was even a bit warm in that. It was -1°C/30°F, but I could happily have sat down to a picnic.

Before we left, I wanted to make a quick trip up Wind Vane Hill. I got hot climbing it, but while on top, a breeze kicked up, and before long I was wishing I hadn't left my jacket at the bottom. The reason I have my hands tucked in my snow pants bib in the above photo is because they were beginning to feel quite nippy. I always had a jacket with me after that, even if I cursed its dead weight the whole time. (It was usually my trenchcoat, not the big red parka, for this reason. I will go into more depth on clothing in a future post.)

A similar thing happened on my Basler flight. I'm afraid I don't know the actual temperatures where and when we landed – we were at the inland extremity of the Barrier, though, so everything I'd read told me it ought to be noticeably colder than McMurdo. It might well have been. But the only clue that it wasn't a perfectly warm summer day was that the slightest stir in the air breathed ice on my hands. It felt much the same at the much higher altitude site of CTAM. The interior of the continent is even drier than the coast: apparently, in the absence of wind and on a bright sunny day, this makes temperature barely perceptible at all.

A windless day is a vast exception in the case of Antarctic weather, though, and besides chilling a human body, the direction of the wind makes a big difference to the objective air temperature. A north wind, arriving from over the open sea, was comparatively mild. Most of the time, however, the wind was from the east to south, coming cold off the icy interior. This sends it funnelling through The Gap straight at Hut Point. The Hut Point Wind was infamous in the Heroic Age; even now it can be a pleasant day at the station, but one must remember to kit up just to walk around the corner to the Discovery Hut.

It did make for some great photos, though, because if the conditions were just right – which they were a few times in my month there – the wind would kick up some freshly fallen snow and things would look so very Antarctic. The funny thing was, on the days when it looked quintessentially polar, it was actually comparatively warm. The snow was so powdery that a fairly light wind could lift it, so it didn't have to be brutally windy to look brutally windy. The cold really sets in when a high pressure system stays in place for a while and keeps the air still; if there is turbulence, there is warmth, and if a weather system moves through – such as the kind that delivers snow – the temperature rises considerably. So in order for there to be fresh snow to blow around, there will have been a recent warm spell, whereas if it's starting to get cold again, the new snow will have compacted enough not to blow around. The strongest winds I encountered in Antarctica were at Cape Crozier, but you'd never guess it from my photos, which haven't a speck of drift. I am sure there are exceptions to this, but this was a dependable pattern in my time there.

Above: two images of light snow blowing off just after a snowfall, when it was comparatively warm. Below: 30-knot winds at Cape Crozier, but you'd never guess.

One of my oddest temperature memories was in one of those balmy drifty situations. I had been asked to give my history lecture over at Scott Base, and I was to wait for the Kiwi truck at a designated pickup point on the road coming over from The Gap. There are three official categories for weather in Antarctica: Condition 3 is when everything can operate as normal: it can be cold, it can be windy, but visibility is fine and the ordinary precautions will see you through. Condition 2 is when things are starting to get serious: drift and/or winds are reaching dangerous levels, extra precaution is necessary, and venturing outside is discouraged. Condition 1 is when everyone is required to stay indoors except on vital business as merely venturing outside is a life-threatening risk. During my month there it was always Condition 3, but within the hour of my pickup a Condition 2 had been declared on the Scott Base side of The Gap. My ride said she would be coming anyway, as she would be overwintering and needed the practice of driving in Condition 2, so I went up to meet her. I was hoping I would finally get a blast of Antarctica, but it gave me a surprise. For one, it was warm. And, yes, it was windy, but not desperately so, and the wind had a damp sweetness that, weirdly, made me think of swelling streams and crocuses. The Condition 2 had been called purely because of the drift, which was obscuring the road and therefore made driving more hazardous than usual. It was surreal to hear my driver checking in with her radio operator as if she were chasing tornadoes when it was really quite pleasant out.

My first few days at McMurdo were by far the coldest of my whole visit. When I first visited the Discovery Hut it was -18°C, or just below 0°F, and rather windy on the way back. That was when I learned that one can be feeling really quite cosy all over but one's outermost extremities can still suffer the cold – I distinctly remember wondering why my fingertips were tingling when I felt so warm, and a little while later my toes went numb and I had to stamp them back to life. The dryness, not sapping your core heat, can lure you into a false sense of security, and nab your digits while you're not looking.

After that, daily highs mostly hovered around the freezing point, and lows rarely dipped as low as -10°C/+14°F. This was really very mild – indeed, the people who'd been down since September could often be seen flitting about in t-shirts – and was an amusing irony for me personally. Twice in the past I'd visited Calgary in search of 'Antarctic' cold and hit, instead, a relatively mild spell; it turned out that in Antarctica I was getting exactly the same weather that I had thought un-Antarctic in Calgary. Not only was it the same weather on paper, but it felt exactly the same as well – the light, fresh kiss of frosty air on one's cheeks, surprising warmth in the sunshine but a breeze to keep you honest, and even the same granular texture to old snow. Altitude can give you the same feeling, as the thinner air cannot hold as much moisture as it can at lower levels, so if you've not been to the Prairies but have been on a ski holiday, you can use that as a reference point as well.

It is much harder to draw parallels with damper climates. At home in Cambridge, I have a sort of 'misery zone' between 4°-10°C (40°-50°F) where it's too cold to be warm, but not cold enough to be crisp, and the damp seems to seep through every layer to reach in and chill. As the thermometer plunges towards freezing and below, it is, ironically, more comfortable weather, because the colder the air is, the less moisture it can hold. In Britain I have sometimes found myself taking off layers as the mercury falls. When imagining Antarctica, people often extrapolate from their own experience of cold temperatures: If your base measure of cold is the 'misery zone' in a damp climate, such as Europe or the Eastern US, then you may think 'If 6°C feels like this, then -6° must feel that much worse' when in fact all the other factors at play can make it preferable. Even the cold days on my arrival at McMurdo were nicer, experientially, than a misty morning in deepest February back home. At one point, Cherry describes Antarctic summer weather as resembling a crisp sunny morning in September, and indeed from a British perspective Antarctica often felt more like a bright and breezy 13°C (55°F) than anything closer to freezing.

This gave me some perspective on the early explorers. If they had spent their lives on this chilly island, and then travelled to Antarctica over a chilly sea, they would be coming at it with all the assumptions one acquires from experience with humid cold. Finding not an amplification of your worst experiences, but instead a wonderland where the thermometer seemed to exist in a different reality – certainly the case when they arrived in midsummer – would encourage some overconfidence that we might consider reckless. Some, like Scott, had been down before and knew how deceptive the weather could be; his journals are full of chiding his team for not taking Antarctica seriously. But there were many who were new to it, and even after an Antarctic winter, sheltered as they were in an insulated hut by the sea, they did not fully grasp how dangerous things could get inland and how narrow the margins were. A breeze may be thrilling when it brings the truth of -10 to exposed skin warmed by the sun; when the truth is -40 it's instant frostbite. While I didn't get temperatures that low, my experience with higher ones can, I hope, help me imagine how that would go.

The dryness that made the cold so bearable granted me a reprieve from an opposing worry. Outside of Britain I generally find buildings overheated in the winter – I have to remind myself to pack light 'inside clothes' or else I suffocate. This is especially the case in the States, and McMurdo being an American base I foresaw having to strip five layers off and put them back on again every time I entered or exited a building. They may have been overheated, but I don't know – dry air saps the potency of heat as well as cold, so it was as comfortable to wear three layers as one, and that saved me a lot of time in the cloakroom. Thanks, Antarctica!

I had got so used to the nip in the air that I thought I'd be inured to cold for the rest of the winter, but once I was back on this cold damp North Atlantic island, the misery zone was as potent as ever. I may not have picked up thermoregulation superpowers in Antarctica, but I did come back with two secret weapons: merino wool base layers, and an utter disregard for my appearance so long as I was warm. I highly recommend both to anyone in a disagreeable climate.

#travel #antarctica #cold #travel blog #weather #mcmurdo station

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itstheendofthegoddamnworld · 4 years

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A Little Pick-Me-Up (Connor x Reader)

Summary: Connor decides to come to over to your apartment to check up on you after a mission gone wrong but comes to find out that you weren't expecting the RK800 to show up so late at night. Awkward feelings ensue for both.

A/N: Connor is best boi and I love him so much. Also, this is mainly in his perspective as well as in the third person.

Also found on A03

Words: 2,911

"I don't think she's doing too well, son."

Connor's eyes flitted up to the older male opposite him by his desk, a dour expression present on his face.

"Who do you mean, Lieutenant?" Connor had placed his concern. He didn't need to really grasp exactly who Hank was talking about, getting the gist that it had to do with someone that they both knew. And Connor was quick to put two and two together. "I looked over Detective L/N's vitals and conditions and they're minor. Is there something wrong?"

"Yeah, that's the thing, I don't fucking think she is, Connor. She barely even said a word in the car, let alone we got back." Hank stated, his eyes flickering to behind Connor's head. "And besides, she didn't even say anything when she left."

Connor's head turned back towards the entrance of the station where he was able to scan quickly that indeed, you had left without a goodbye. How he hadn't been able to sense you leaving left him rather baffled and upset that you hadn't come over to them.

The two of you always said goodbye before you left, your warm smile and eyes looking to him when you waved farewell, your eyes always seemed to keep him rigid in his spot, unable to let him function. "She did seem upset earlier. Could it of been to do with the deviant?"

"That was what I was assuming." Hank sighed heavily, his face read easily to Connor that he was more than just tired with the situation and the leads that came back to nothing.

"Sometimes, human emotions are harder to understand. It's our blessing and fucking curse if you ask me." He paused briefly, looking over his android partner. "Do you mind going to check on her, Connor? I'm sure you would brighten her world with how she's feeling."

"What about you, Lieutenant? I'm supposed to finish reading the reports." He was uncertain, or apart of his programming told him that, should he go do this? Connor was certain that you didn't really want to see anyone right now, but the possibility of cheering you up was high.

76% chance of success. "Oh it's fine, I can get Wilson to get a look at it, and besides... you did enough already today." Hank huffed to himself, muttering, "God, why must I sound so soppy?"

"If that is okay with you? I will go to detective L/N's place to see her right away," Connor confirmed, standing already from his desk. "Woah, wait, you sure you don't need her address or something? I don't think walking around Detroit is a good idea." Suggested Hank.

"Don't worry, Lieutenant. That's why I already looked through detective L/N's profile when we first met and found her details, just in case." Connor's simple words were enough to make Hank look at him in disbelief, shaking his head.

"Jesus fucking Christ, Connor, do you know how creepy if you ask me -- look, I don't even want to know where you found it-- oh whatever... fricking young people and their weird love, I guess."

Connor didn't exactly understand the meaning of what his partner had muttered, his LED spinning momentarily yellow before neutralising to a light blue. It didn't matter now when the RK800 had brought up your address into his vision, slowly retreating from Hank to take his leave.

"Have a good night, Hank."

"Yeah, yeah, just tell Y/N I hope she's doing okay." Hank gave a brief wave as Connor left the building, entering the cold night with no distress against the sudden drop in temperature. The blue objective came over, and he scanned it into his peripheral:

Objective: Get to Y/N's.

Your apartment complex seemed quaint and warm. That was what Connor first thought - of course, he shouldn't have allowed himself to have such opinions or thoughts - when he entered the main entrance entryway, ascending to the fifth floor to get to your level as he walked down the long, dimly lit corridors.

He finally came to your door, the wooden door had been beaten in with its white paint job fading and chipping. Perhaps it wasn't as nice as Connor had expected.

He gave a firm knock on the door when he stopped himself from hesitating, the three knocks were enough to bring a long pause from the inside, before shuffling came closer to the door before it was unlocked and opened, revealing yourself to him. He had only just heard the soft buzzing of a stereo play in the background of your flat, softly it lulled him into a sense of comfort that he didn't think was possible in feeling.

"Connor," Your voice was oddly composed with a tint of surprised by his presence, your eyes darting back and forth between him and the inside of your door, "what are you doing here?"

"Lieutenant Anderson and I believed you weren't feeling too good after the mission this afternoon, so I came by to see if you were well." Connor kept it formal still regardless whether it was an out of work talk or not, but he couldn't decipher why his thirium pump regulator was pumping at an astronomical rate just from staring at you.

He took a quick scan of your features, the tiredness in your eyes could've been excused but there was a likelihood it had been from something else; since Connor could tell that your eyes had been rather puffy and red. You gave him a gentle smile, the corners of your eyes wrinkling even when you had looked so blue.

Y/N HAD BEEN CRYING?

"I'm fine, Connor, I promise. Just... didn't sleep so good these last couple of nights." Your cheeks seemed to heat up on sight, Connor had noticed, and you standing there in your pyjamas and hair tied up when you would usually wear such formal blouses and trousers, he couldn't deny that there was much more than just agreeing you were aesthetically pleasing to look at.

You were very pretty regardless, he confirmed.

"Detective, I may suggest that the coffee intake you have daily may be contributing to your lack of sleep," Connor informed, his brown eyes lit up, watching your facial expressions.

Your face was flushed as you rolled your eyes playfully at his words. His inquisitive gaze never faltered as he observed.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. You know you sound just like Hank, he complains too if I'm slacking." You gave a soft smile, holding the doorframe taut in your fingers.

When you finally looked up to him, there seemed to be a hesitant uncertainty hiding in your eyes, nervous, Connor knew from how your heart rate had caught up. He titled his head to get a proper look at you, curious as to what you would do or say.

"Do you... um, would you like to come in, Connor? Of course, if you're not too busy."

The smile that the RK800 gave you was lopsided, nervous as much as you had been looking, stroking his fingers with little thought. "That would be kind of you, detective." Your face lit up when he accepted, and excitedly, you took his hand to lead him inside.

Had your hands always been this warm? They were pleasant and comforting, silently wishing he could hold your hand forever, Connor slipped inside your cosy flat, his LED spinning a constant yellow at the feel of so many questions and unknown emotions.

ˢᵒᶠᵗʷᵃʳᵉ ᴵⁿˢᵗᵃᵇⁱˡⁱᵗʸ

"Please, you don't need to be so formal around me, just Y/N." You smiled sheepishly to him, your frame still close to the doorframe as possible.

You looked innocent, pure and cute in Connor's eyes, the need to protect you washed over him so many times when he had been protecting you from an oncoming bullet, but this feeling that swelled in his chest? It made him feel much more than just warmth.

His attention from you was disrupted with a soft growl that came from behind him, and when he had turned, he hadn't expected to see such a small creature growl towards him. You intervened quickly.

"Clover! Stop that!" The small black and tan dog hushed with its growling towards Connor who still held a curious and awestruck expression now towards the small creature.

Y/N LIKES DOGS.

"I'm sorry about her, she's never usually so yappy with new people." You sheepishly gained Connor's attention with a squeeze of his fingers that were still entwined. His gaze fell from your fingers to your face once more, giving you once more a timid smile. "It's okay. I like dogs."

"So I have been told." Y/N smiled back at him, finally letting go of her grasp of his fingers, pulling away almost out of awkwardness. "Go on, have a look around if you want, I was just making dinner, I'll be in the living room shortly."

Connor nodded, intrigued, to say the least with your place as he went to explore and learn much more about you in ways he didn't think he would.

When you finally emerged from your small kitchen, Connor was stiffly kneeled in front of your corgi, trying to make amends by gingerly stroking the top of her head, Clover finally giving in and allowing the android to stroke her.

"You've made a new friend, I see?" You smiled at the sight, Connor turning his head to see you walk over to sit on your couch just in front of him.

"She's very soft." Connor softly spoke, as if careful of how he moved when he was next to this 12kg corgi. The sight alone was enough to make Y/N giggle, trying to suppress it when she didn't want to be spotted by Connor.

Connor finally moved to stand, coming to sit stiffy beside you on the couch, so close that your bodies were touching side by side that he didn't think he would be able to take much longer having you there so close to him, he believed his stress levels would go up so high that he would simply just explode.

You turned to him to look at him from the side on, smiling broadly to him. "Hey, wanna watch a movie?"

Connor couldn't help but even feel his Adam's apple bob in the motion when he didn't even need to do so, gulping unnecessary when you turned on your tv to stream a movie, the movie he wasn't even paying attention to when he had been glancing back and forth to you every few seconds when the film began.

You had sensed his uncomfortable and stiff posture, smiling as you rested your head on his shoulder, almost immediately feeling him stiffen even more at the surprise touch.

"Just relax, Connor." You murmured, trying to hide your own blush as you keep your eyes trained as much as you could on the movie.

The RK800 finally did relax, loosening his shoulders as he hesitantly put an arm around you, holding you in his embrace, his back reclining into the cushion of the couch as he finally eased to watch the film, trying his best to ignore the feelings in his heads.

ˢᵒᶠᵗʷᵃʳᵉ ᴵⁿˢᵗᵃᵇⁱˡⁱᵗʸ

Halfway through the film, he could sense you had stopped paying attention, and when he had glanced to look down at you, your soft and warm eyes were already looking up at him. He could feel the thirium in his body pump faster, "Is there something wrong, Y/N?"

You blinked yourself out of your staring, looking back and forth to him and the film as you slowly quietened at the sound. "I guess I can tell you why I wasn't feeling so good earlier today."

Connor shifted his body so that he could properly face you, look at your expressions and eyes, his hands came almost instinctively to touch at your knuckles, softly and slowly touching at the skin. "You can tell me anything, Y/N."

A sad smile washed over your features, squeezing his fingers tightly, and before him, Connor believed you may begin to cry again.

"Hank was always so quick to chastise me if I did something wrong, always. But I knew that he meant the most for my career. Back downtown, I never felt so useless in trying to bring down a deviant, even stooping so low to almost get myself killed when I got shoved off the ledge."

Connor watched intently and closely, watching you hug yourself in support. "You had helped Hank from the ledge... but why me? Why had you saved me, when you could've caught up and gotten it?" You questioned hoarsely, sullen.

“Because you were assigned to be my partner, as well as Lieutenant Anderson. I couldn't let you fall, regardless of whether the chances of survival were high or not." Connor spoke, but still, all you could think of was one thing; being nothing more than just a statistic.

"Am I just that though, Connor? Do those at Cyberlife make you feel any empathy for your human partners? Am I just a statistic to you?" It was clear to him that through your voice you were distraught, upset.

His makers had made him so that he was faster and more efficient, the best deviant hunter there was in Detroit, to never feel such emotions because they were for deviants... and yet, he couldn't stop himself from feeling such a way with you.

"Y/N, you're more than just a statistic. You're bright, kind and funny. You withstand Detective Reed, Lieutenant Hank and his criticisms, but most of all," he gave a nervous bated breath once more and exhaled accidentally, "you put up with having an android partner, and never once did you complain about it."

"You're more than just an android of a plastic partner, Connor, you're human, whether you admit it or not." Y/N admitted, darting her eyes away from him as if nervous how he would react.

"I don't think it is you deviating, but it is certainly much more than just coding or programming in your system telling you what is right and wrong through probability."

"What do you think it is then, Y/N?" He involuntarily felt his body lean closer into you as if feeling for this warmth that only you had, and he needed more of it to be pumped into his body, to help him feel alive.

You gave a timid smile, your head leaning closer into him to meet him halfway, your eyes searching his as his LED spun constant yellow in questioning. "Connor, what are you thinking right now? Do you see anything?" You asked him softly, the fan of your breath across your cheek was tender.

"No," Connor confessed, "it's like I'm... doing this without... without needing to know what to do or the options." It felt clear to him, but it confused him greatly. It seemed almost as if he was in a state of spontaneity and impulse without him needing to know what he had to do or say.

"Good," You whispered almost sweetly, your hand came to tenderly come to straighten his jacket. "just let it do what you think is right. Just switch it off."

Connor swallowed once more, his brown eyes glancing back and forth towards your eyes and then your lips before slowly, he leant further forward until your foreheads were touching, breaths held, waiting whether or not you would pull away or push him off.

Instead, you slowly craned your neck upwards, capturing his lips softly, carefully and shyly.

His lips were warm and didn't feel as plastic as you had imagined, there was a softness that came from them like humans had with their flesh and skin, and it was so lifelike, so incredible that you didn't believe that this was happening.

Connor brought his fingers to touch at the side of your face, pulling you ever-so-close to him as he wrapped his other hand around your waist, deeply kissing you with as many nerves as you had been feeling.

You finally pulled away first, first to look at his dishevelled and astonished expression, his cheeks heated with a light blue tint, his LED a steady blue. You laughed timidly, and he had too, like the two of you had been blushing young school kids and weren't experienced in kissing whatsoever.

It was short but nice, his lips feeling amazing and you had already missed the feeling of them against yours.

"I-- wow," you breathed out, the smile on your face never faltering, sincerely you looked at him. Connor smiled back just as toothily, looking down to see that Clover had snuggled her body to fit between his feet, the sight alone was adorable.

He wrapped his arm around you once more, allowing you to rest your head against his shoulder as he rested his head against yours. "I don't want this to end." He confessed smoothly.

"Me neither." You grinned, yawning, your eyes slowly drooping. "Stay here for the night, please?" You held his hand once more, his fingers smoothing over your knuckles to give you great comfort. Connor kissed your hairline with tenderness, ignoring everything and anything as he slowly laid beside you. "Of course."

The two of you had fallen asleep quickly, with Connor going into static mode, waiting for when he was able to spend the next day with you so lovingly.

#detroit being human #Detroit: BH #detroit become human #detroit connor #detroit become human connor #dbh connor x reader #DBH #dbh fluff #dbh connor fluff #fluffy fic #dbh oneshot #assassin's creed syndicate oneshot #dbh connor oneshot #dbh connor #connor rk800 #dbh connor x human reader

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katalyna-rose · 4 years

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Kat’s Rat Shopping List

I’ve gotten a few requests for a shopping list of my rat setup (tagging @collapseofthesky because they requested this, specifically, but I’ve had a few others message me), so I thought I’d give it a try and also add a few explanations for why I do some things the way I do. As such, this is going to be a very long post and is therefore under a cut. There will be a basic shopping list without all the explanations at the very end of the post under TL;DR if you don’t care about the rest or whatever.

I had a lot of fun with this and spent way more time on it than I meant to, and might be open to doing more of this kind of thing in the future.

Cage

First up, the cage. Obviously. I’ve said it before but it’s a Double Critter Nation and a Single Critter Nation with the side panels removed and zip tied together. These are sometimes sold in pet stores (the locally owned pet store I prefer has them in stock). I bought mine online because of a really good sale, but you can sometimes get really lucky and find them for resale on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist for super cheap. I love this cage because the whole front opens up and that makes it super accessible and easy to clean, decorate, and get to my pets wherever they may be. It’s also huge!

US minimum for rat cages is 2 cubic feet per rat, with a minimum of two rats because rats cannot be housed alone as they are extremely social animals. No, human companionship is not enough, rats need same-age, same-species companionship at all times. Please be aware, as well, that minimums are not the ideal to strive for. Whatever space you intend to dedicate to your rats, fill it! Fill it all up! And if you don’t have enough space for a large cage, don’t get rats. My setup, with the Home Depot/Lowe’s large cement mixing tubs in the bottom, is roughly 45 cubic feet of space. If we’re looking at minimums, this means I could house 22 rats! There’s no way that 22 rats could ever actually be comfortable in my setup. It would be insane, chaotic, and extremely messy. So why would 2 rats be comfortable in 4 cubic feet? They wouldn’t. More space is always better, hard stop.

Also remember that wire cages with bar spacing of no more than an inch for adult rats and no more than half an inch for small or young rats is a must. Tanks are absolutely not recommended for rats due to poor ventilation, which will cause respiratory issues and allow ammonia to build up much faster.

Bedding

This is different from nesting. Yes, it is. Bedding is the substrate used at the bottom of the cage or on shelves to catch errant droppings and urine, and is generally left where it is by the rats because they have no interest in it.

My main bedding is pine wood horse stall pellets. They are as dust free as the alternatives like shavings or paper pellets, and combine the best aspects of both those types of bedding with the ammonia-neutralizing effects of wood shavings and the compact, easy-to-clean nature of pellets. I love them. I also get them super hilariously cheap from Tractor Supply Co, so despite it being a little bit of a drive for me (about an hour round trip) the fact that it’s half the price of the next cheapest option more than makes up for it. I buy a bunch all at once and currently have a few bags left in my trunk because I didn’t have enough closet space for them. It’s great stuff. It crumbles when wet so it helps me keep track of how much and where they’re urinating, and it’s easy to spot clean those areas in between deep cleans.

When choosing a wood, if that’s the route you want to go, remember to check what is safe to use. Pine is only safe when it’s kiln-dried, since it contains fragrant oils that can cause respiratory issues in rats, mice, and hamsters. Some people will advise you to stay away from it entirely, and that’s fine, but since pine is often the cheapest option it’s not always viable. Aspen is a safe wood, but harder to find in pellet form and slightly more expensive as shavings. I use aspen shavings in my litter trays. Cedar wood is NEVER safe, no matter how it’s treated. I don’t think cedar is ever safe no matter what for any animal it��s marketed to, actually. It’ll cause respiratory distress in rats, mice, and hamsters, and guinea pigs and rabbits should never be on shavings regardless though I’m pretty sure they’ll still experience respiratory distress. The oils naturally in the wood are not safe, do not use cedar. Also make sure your bedding is as dust-free as possible, also for respiratory reasons. If you have a small animal, their respiratory system is extremely delicate, and that’s just a fact of pet ownership that you should have learned before getting a pet when you were researching how to care for it.

Since I have two shelves in my cage and they are both shallow to the point of not even having a lip (Critter Nation’s only flaw is the trays that come with the cage), I line my shelves with fleece over an appropriately sized bath mat. Fleece makes a great shelf liner, but I don’t recommend using it in the entire cage because it gets dirty really fast and most rats will chew it up, so you’ll both be changing it every other day and going through it super fast as it is destroyed. However, it makes great shelf liners, especially when very little of the shelf is actually available to the rats like in my setup, where the shelves are mostly covered in other things. Remember that fleece must always be lined with an absorbent layer underneath because the fleece itself allows liquid to pass right through it. That’s the point: the fleece stays relatively clean and dry while the absorbent layer takes all the gross stuff away. Towels are generally not recommended for this because rats can get their nails stuck in the fabric and rip them out, which is painful and distressing for the rat and also you. Anything super absorbent with a really tight weave will do lovely here, hence the low pile bath mats I use. I get them for one or two dollars at Ikea and wash them every week. I keep several around to rotate through. The fleece I use is also a fleece blanket from Ikea for a couple bucks that I cut into four sections because that rendered it the perfect size to tuck around the shelves. This makes my bedding extremely cheap, and that makes me happy because I can spend that money on enrichment instead.

Nesting

This is the material that the rats like to push around, dig in, and sleep in. It’s important to provide soft but preferably absorbent materials for the rats to nest in because it’s enriching, comfortable, and helps them regulate body temperature. Multiple types of nesting are recommended for enrichment purposes. Rats like texture! I use unscented, unlotioned tissues as a main nesting material for within their hides because they’re cheap, safe, absorbent, and soft. I bought 30 boxes of 100 tissues each for super cheap online, but you can also buy dollar store tissues or whatever you have access to. Just make sure they don’t have scents or lotions, because those are not safe for your rats’ delicate respiratory systems. The empty boxes (plastic removed) can also be given for the rats to chew up and play in, or you can save them up to DIY some fun toys later, which is what I’m doing.

I also have two dig boxes, which will also go under the enrichment section. The bins I got for cheap from Target, but obviously you can get bins wherever you want to get bins. Just measure to make sure they fit in your cage properly. The only dig box I want to talk about in this section is the hay box, because the dirt is not actually a nesting material but rather an enriching one. So, hay. My girls love this stuff so much that they drag it all over the cage to shove it into all their sleeping areas. They build actual rat nests in the box, tunnel through it, stash food in it, shred it for fun, and generally spend as much time as possible with the hay. I use oat hay for the seed heads that provide additional enrichment and snacks because the rats have to get to the seeds in order to eat them. If you are feeding a low-quality diet to your rats, do not use oat hay because they’ll fill up on seeds instead of eating their nutritionally-balanced food and that is not good. My rats love their food so much that the seeds are a sometimes snack that I don’t need to regulate because they do it themselves. Any good quality hay will do for a hay box, however, and timothy hay tends to be the cheapest option. Just make sure it’s not super low quality, because low quality hay tends to be dusty. As mentioned previously several times, rats have delicate respiratory systems and dust is bad for them. I buy my hay from Small Pet Select because I like supporting small business, ethical business, and businesses that provide excellent products. They are, however, primarily a rabbit site. I keep hoping they’ll expand the other sections of their shop. Also, make sure your rats aren’t trying to eat the hay. This is highly unlikely because rats are smart and know what’s edible and what isn’t, and hay is not edible for rats. If for some reason your rats are eating hay, do not give them a hay box.

Other nesting options I’ve used in the past include cut up bits of fleece, cut up old clothes you might have lying around, and generally just bits of fabric. Just remember to change out/wash them regularly. Ammonia will build up, and once again that’s bad for your rats’ respiratory systems.

Hides and Hammocks

Rats are prey animals. Surprise! As such, they need plenty of places to hide and feel safe. Rats love small, dark places to rest in. Much like many introverted humans, myself included! Make sure to include plenty of hides all over the cage. Variety is excellent here for enrichment reasons. My rats absolutely love Space Pods! Lixit makes the ones I use, but there’s also a brand called Sputnik that’s basically the same thing. I’ve never seen them in stores, but they’re all over the internet. For rats, make sure you get the large size. Honestly I wish it was larger than it is, but oh well. The girls love it anyway. I kept getting sent only the bottom halves, which is why I have two half space pods in my cage. I got a refund or replacement on both because it’s not what I paid for, but, like… I received the usable half, so I’m gonna use it. The girls don’t like to sleep in them without the covers, but they’ll hang out in there and clean themselves, and they climb through them to get from one spot to another.

In addition to the space pods, I also have various other hides. Lixit also makes a pill-shaped plastic hide that I keep on the shelf over the dirt box. They used to use it a lot more than they do now, and I’m not entirely sure why. Even so, they still use it! I also have a woven grass tent that they enjoy, and a cork log. Neither of those are really for sleeping, but they do hide in them sometimes and generally like to hang out there.

Hammocks are great, and also available in wide variety all over the internet and in stores. My favorite banana hammock was just retired, but I intend to get another. The girls loved it and so did I! Hammocks come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, and can pull double duty as both a place to sleep and a way to break up the cage so there aren’t any dead drops where your rats can fall from a height and hurt themselves. Fill your cage with hammocks! All the hammocks! Support small creators by buying homemade hammocks! Learn to make them yourself! They’re cheap and easy! Hammocks are great.

Enrichment Part 1: Levels

Rats are climbers. Rats need vertical space as well as horizontal space. Rats are sometimes clumsy idiots who fall off of things. As such, all vertical space must be filled with all kinds of fall breakers. As mentioned before, hammocks are great for this. So are ladders, bridges, ropes, and that Ikea tie hanger I have strung across the back of my cage. If your rat falls from anywhere in the cage, make sure there’s something to catch them!

Also make sure there’s something to do on all the levels of the cage, even if that thing to do is just get from one level to the next. Rats are dexterous and adventurous. Ramps are boring because they’re easy. If you have sick or injured rats, absolutely use ramps! Accessibility matters! If your rats are of sound body, however, make them work for it. Lava ledges and bird perches make great alternatives to ramps. Screw them into the cage walls and watch your rats hop around! They love it. Ladders are also fun, especially if they’re not used the way ladders are meant to be used. Suspend them from things, put them at weird angles, just make sure they’re secure. I get a lot of my levels from the bird aisle at the pet store (or virtual pet store). Be aware that sometimes your rats are going to prefer to climb directly on the bars of the cage. That’s normal! The bars are there, so the rats will climb them. That’s all there is to it!

Climbing frames like the wooden wine rack from Ikea that I have in the bottom of my cage are also good to have. My girls love it, and it does double duty as a chew toy.

Enrichment Part 2: Chewing

Contrary to popular belief and old science, rats do not actually require chews to keep their teeth trimmed. Rats trim their own teeth by bruxing, or grinding their teeth together. This does not, however, negate the need for chews. Rats like to chew! What your rat likes to chew best is entirely subjective. Some rats love wood and sticks, some rats will always chew fabric over anything else, some rats will never chew fabric. Every rat is different! Try as much variety as you can and keep stocked up on the things your rats like best. My rats really like woven grass, and I try to keep at least a couple different kinds around for them. I keep a grass mat on a shelf that they like to pull apart, and the woven grass tent will likely have a short lifespan, as well. There’s a woven grass tunnel thing that they’ve put into the dirt box and are slowly but systematically shredding. My girls also like willow sticks, so I’ve got a couple hanging toys of willow that are very slowly being chewed because there’s so much else to chew. The wooden bridges see a fair bit of chewing, and even the lava ledges get chewed on the edges. My girls also love destroying rattan and wicker balls. I bought a bunch of them for cheap and toss a new one in there about every week or so. They love them. I also got a couple things from Small Pet Select like a pine cone, a bit of natural loofah, and a dried okra pod. So far the okra pod has seen the most action and is shredded halfway to infinity. I think they like that it has seeds inside, but the others get chewed sometimes, too. There’s enough variety in my setup that everything lasts a decently long time. Except the rattan balls.

Enrichment Part 3: Digging

As much as rats like to climb, they also like to dig. That’s why it’s highly recommended to have a dig box. Safe substrate is important here. If you’re going with potting soil, make sure it’s just dirt and doesn’t contain any fertilizer. Personally, I found potting soil to be kind of annoying a little expensive. I prefer coconut soil. I use Exo Terra terrarium soil, which is sold in compacted blocks that you have to hydrate. I use two thirds of the recommended water because my rats don’t need humidity. I use three blocks per dig box, and replace the soil every month because the girls will do their business in it sometimes, leave food in it, leave bits of tissue or hay or various shredded chews. Basically, the dirt gets dirty in bad ways and needs to be replaced sometimes. It can also grow things if left too long because of the humidity (which will be a problem regardless of the type of substrate being used). So every deep clean, both dig boxes get emptied, wiped out, and refilled.

The hay box gets an honorable mention here, since it pulls double duty as both nesting and digging. Triple duty, really, since it’s also a forage toy.

Enrichment Part 4: Misc

Yeah, I didn’t know what category to put this under, so here we are. Litter boxes! No, seriously, this counts as enrichment. Training your rats, whether it’s to do tricks or just poop where you want them to, counts as enrichment. Rats are incredibly smart! They’re at least as trainable as the average dog, especially if they come from an ethical breeder who breeds for health and temperament (let me just slide a reminder not to buy live animals from pet stores that source from highly unethical breeding mills in right here; please support ethical breeders and rescues), and will happily take to any training. Remember that positive reinforcement is the only ethical way to train an animal. Treats are great for this, and your pet will love you even more because every living thing loves food. My rats actually didn’t require much training for their litter trays. Make sure that whatever you’re lining the litter trays with is not the same as their normal bedding. If you’re using aspen shavings in the main cage, use pine in the litter trays, or literally any distinct safe bedding. I use shavings in my litter trays and pellets in my main cage. This helps the rats distinguish the litter trays from the rest of the cage and makes it easier to identify where to do their business versus where not to do so. When you first put the litter trays in, just go in at least once a day and toss any poops you see into the tray. If you see your rats using the litter tray, offer a treat while they’re doing so. Rats are extremely clean animals and they like their mess contained as much as you do. It would not be possible for me to only deep clean once a month if I didn’t have litter trays that I clean out about twice a week (or more, if necessary) to get rid of the majority of the mess and smell. I’d be deep cleaning every two weeks at least without them, so the litter trays are a great investment overall. Your rats will never be perfect about using them, because they’re still rats, but they’ll help a great deal.

Also under this section are forage toys! Do not feed your rats from a simple bowl, it’s boring and encourages stashing, which means you’ll never know when they’ve actually run out of food because they’re just going to pick it up and take it somewhere else and have a great big hoard that you’ll find on deep clean day. You can definitely scatter feed, that’s enriching as well because it makes the rats go looking for their food, but forage toys are the ultimate way to feed your rats, I think. I mostly don’t get my forage toys from the small animal aisle. I do have one that’s small animal specific, a little ball that they roll around the get the food out. I also have some marketed for cats, and some marketed for birds. Having multiple kinds is really helpful. I’ve also noticed that while some stashing still occurs, it’s greatly reduced. I refill the toys as they empty and everyone’s happy.

Food/Water

What you feed your rats is extremely important, obviously. Many commercially available pellet foods marketed for rats are actually extremely not good for rats. The same is true cat and dog food. It is a sad fact that the companies that make these foods tend to be far more interested in their bottom line than the health of your pet. As such, do your research! Always do your research! Know what’s in the food and what your animal should be eating, and try to match those two things up as closely as possible. In the UK rat owners typically will avoid pellet foods and prefer homemade mixes for these reasons, but making your own mix is not always feasible and can be tricky if you don’t know what you’re doing. Most US rat owners tend toward pellets because it’s a lot harder to mess up the balance of nutrients when it’s done for you. Also, the UK does not have Oxbow, which is one of the most popular brands of healthy rat food. It’s the brand that I use, and my rats adore it. Mazuri is another popular and healthy option, but my rats prefer Oxbow over anything else. I kind of want to try making my own mix at some point, but I’m not sure I ever will. Like with most of my rat supplies, I buy food in bulk because it’s cheaper. A 20 lb bag of Oxbow Essentials Adult Rat food runs me about 40 bucks. Be careful to buy adult rat food, even for baby rats, because any food that says Young Rat and Mouse is not going to have the appropriate balance of fat and protein even for young rats. Adult food will do just fine for babies, too. If you want to add some extra protein to their diet, try a boiled egg or bits of meat every now and then, but it’s probably not necessary as long as they’re getting enough food and some extra fruits and veggies now and then. If you want to try making a mix, do so much research before you try it, and make sure your ingredients are good quality.

Rats should also receive other foods in addition to their pellet or main food. Rats are omnivores and love fresh veggies, fruits, milk, eggs, and meat! Make sure you research safe foods before giving them to your rats, as not everything is safe. If you adopt your rats from an ethical breeder, they should have resources available to you on what’s safe and healthy. If you rescue, you can still reach out to established ethical breeders for tips and tricks, or find lists online as you do your research. Some veggies are only safe cooked, some parts of certain plants are unsafe while others are safe, and some foods are only safe for males or females but not the other sex (citrus and mango are the ones I remember that fall into that category). Just do your research and try to keep processed foods away from your rats. Sodium is also not good for them. Any raw meat or fish should be frozen and then thawed before being fed to your rats to kill any potential contaminants. Like always, do your research first!

Rats obviously require water, as well. Water bottles tend to be the most widely accepted way to give rats water, because they don’t evaporate and are easy to keep clean. I, however, have a terrible time with bottles, and they always leak or break. Thus, I have opted for water bowls instead. The girls love them more than the bottles I’ve used in the past, and they’re a little more enriching, as well. The only downside is that I have to wash them out daily. But since I spot clean daily anyway, I don’t mind at all.

First Aid Kit

Any responsible pet owner should always keep a first aid kit around, no matter what kind of pet they have. Pet owners who have particularly vulnerable pets should especially be careful to make sure they have a well-stocked first aid kit. This should include single-use sterile syringes without needles, gauze pads, vet wrap, infant/toddler ibuprofen or acetaminophen, medical tape, cat nail trimmers, and probiotic powder like Benebac. But most importantly, it should include the phone number and location of a vet that will see and treat rats. Have a vet picked out that you have confirmed will see and treat your pets BEFORE getting pets. If an emergency arises and you’re suddenly scrambling for a vet last second, not only do you waste precious time getting your pet the help they need but you may find out too late that the nearest rat-friendly vet is too far away. That means your pet will suffer unnecessarily and you are an irresponsible pet owner. Hard stop. If there is no vet within reach that will see rats, do not get rats. Rats will require a vet trip at least once in their lives, since all rats are extremely prone to respiratory illness. Sometimes this happens for no reason at all, because all rats possess a bacteria in their respiratory systems called mycoplasma. There’s no way to get rid of it and nothing you can do about it except make sure your rats live in a clean, well-ventilated environment with safe bedding and materials. Even with all this, sometimes your rats will get sick. That’s normal! Just make sure you can take care of them when it happens. As such, make sure you have a vet fund at all times of at least a couple hundred dollars, in addition to a well-stocked first aid kit and the name and location of an appropriate vet.

It’s also beneficial and enriching to syringe train your rats. What this means is putting a liquid treat like baby food, yogurt, or apple sauce into a syringe and giving it to your rats. This teaches the rats that the syringe is a good thing so that if you ever need to give them medicine from the syringe (rat medicine tends to be oral and dissolved in a liquid solution, so those needle-less syringes will be necessary) they’re more likely to take the medicine with minimum complaints.

Storage

Maybe it goes without saying, but you also need places to put all of the things for your rats. Keep your first aid kit in a box to itself so you always know where it is, and organize your supplies appropriately. I really like Ikea bins for my bedding and food and other dry bulk items, and I keep a lot of my smaller stuff on a shelf at the foot of my bed. Work with the space you have, and plan appropriately.

And thus concludes this extremely long explanation of the bare basics of healthy rat living. Really, this is the bare basics and not even remotely comprehensive of the options available. Be creative when shopping, and definitely look outside of the small animal aisle at your local pet store because it will not contain anywhere near all of what you need.

TL;DR: A Basic Shopping List of My Specific Setup

-Double Critter Nation

-Single Critter Nation

-Zip ties

-2 Large sized cement mixing tubs from Home Depot/Lowe’s

-Pine wood horse stall pellets

-Low pile bath mats, enough to rotate while washing

-Fleece blanket, cut in quarters to fit shelves, enough to rotate while washing

-Bins to hold digging substrate

-Oat hay from Small Pet Select or Oxbow

-Exo Terra coconut fiber terrarium soil

-Lixit Critter Space Pods, large

-Lixit Small Animal Hideout

-Woven grass mat

-Woven grass tent

-Woven grass tube

-Rattan/wicker balls, lots

-Willow stick hanging toys

-Natural loofah

-Sanitized (and therefore safe) pine cone

-Dried okra pod

-Dog ropes

-Wooden bendy bridges

-C-clips, both the kind meant for shower curtains and smaller ones marketed for kids, for hanging things

-Hammocks. All the hammocks. From everywhere hammocks are sold.

-3 (sometimes 4) Ware Scatterless Lock-n-Litter Small Animal Litter Pan, Regular

-Ikea tie hanger

-Ikea wine rack

-Ikea storage bins

-Forage toys

-Oxbow Essentials Adult Rat food

-Ceramic (and therefore tip-proof) water bowls, and/or bowls that can be attached to the cage

-Sterile single-use syringes without needles

-Gauze

-Vet wrap

-Medical tape

-Infant/toddler ibuprofen/acetaminophen

-Cat nail trimmer

-Probiotic powder like Benebac

-The phone number and location of a rat-friendly vet

-A vet fund of at least a couple hundred dollars

A final note before the end: Always remember to do your research before getting pets, do not get pets if you cannot provide a good life for them with MORE THAN the bare minimum requirements for safe and healthy pets, do not buy live animals from pet stores unless it’s part of a rescue program, don’t take the word of just one person as law, don’t be afraid to ask questions respectfully, and always seek new ways to improve your pet care. This has been a PSA from your friendly small animal enthusiast.

#fancy rats #pet rats #my rat setup #rat care #rat care advice #pet care #long post

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thelordofdarkreunion · 3 years

Text

Magnificent Scoundrels- Prepare

Some character insight. I’ll be doing what everyone thinks about the current situation. As always, if you have any requests, cool ideas, criticisms, comments, or concerns, feel free to tell me. Enjoy the story!

“Diplomacy isn’t worth a damn if you know all their secrets.”

Mass Effect Galaxy

The Citadel

Admiral Adam Vir sat quietly upon the balcony of his hotel room, staring out at the beauty of the Citadel. A glass of something unknown and very fruity was in one hand, and his other was entwined with Sunny’s. Her beautiful blue carapace was glinting in the light of the nearby sun, and she was perched upon a chair suitably reinforced for the Drev frame. A ridiculous, but quite cheery, old song wafted through the air.

“Everybody loves somebody sometime

Everybody falls in love somehow…”

It was rather like a vacation, he thought to himself as he settled back comfortably. It was, indeed, one of the most vacation-like atmospheres he’d had in a while. An absolutely gorgeous hotel room, with an equally stunning view, and complementary room service. Being on the delegation team certainly had its perks. Of course, a vacation was much more than location. It was more with who you spent it with.

“Everybody loves somebody sometime

And although my dream was overdue

Your love made it well worth waiting

For someone like you.”

Quite a fitting song, actually. He’d never admit to choosing it. He was cheesy, yes, but not quite that cheesy. Or, at least, he thought he wasn’t. He’d been told quite frequently otherwise. Usually by Sunny.

Too bad, though, that it wasn’t a vacation. The imminent threat of massive destruction hung over the Citadel like a thunderhead. He softly smiled at his own simile. It was… well, actually quite literal. From the balcony of his room, he would see the silhouette of the Watch Eternal, its massive bulk ready to rain destruction upon an half-suspecting populace.

Strangely, he didn’t feel any tension. He looked to his left with another small smile. With Sunny around, everything just felt… right. There were no problems, no tension, nothing he couldn’t handle. Instead, there was only peace. Tranquility. Love.

All of these thoughts were shattered by the pounding of boots on the hallway floor and a sharp rapping on the door. Both Sunny and Vir shifted, both getting up with the alacrity of warriors. Moving slowly towards the door, weapon in hand, covered by Sunny, he slowly opened it. Never knew what to expect, especially in a high tension situation like this.

Swinging open the heavy, old fashioned mahogany door revealed the grinning face of Peter Quill.

“Adam,” he said. Vir nodded inwardly. Quill never bothered with titles, something that Vir approved of. Always having nervous people call him ‘Admiral’ was bothersome. “I wanted to talk to you.” Vir nodded. He gestured at Sunny with a half awkward cough.

“Quill, this is Sunny, my weapon’s officer. Sunny, I believe you already know of Quill.” Sunny gave the Drev equivalent of a smile, though only Vir saw it.

“Admiral. Captain Quill. I’ll take my leave.” She walked past them and out the door.

“Uh, yeah. Sunny was just in here to discuss-” Quill cut him off.

“I may be unobservant, but I’m not that unobservant,” he said. Vir opened his mouth to say something (deny it, explain it, embrace it, he still didn’t know), but Quill waved his hand and plunked himself down in an uncomfortable looking chair. “I’m in the same position, if it makes you feel any better.” Yes! Of course! It was one thing remembering old movies and new briefings, but another entirely when someone was talking to you in person.

“Yes… I, uh, rather suspected.” He paused, thinking. “Wait a minute…” He recalled the advice given to him by Drake, seemingly a lifetime ago. He had kept it in mind ever since.

I won’t tell anyone. You can trust me with that. In fact… well, I can’t tell you, now can I? That would be me breaking trust. Let me give you a bit of advice, though. Keep it a secret, because there are people who will kill you for it.

“Did Drake give you the same advice?” Quill looked up sharply.

“Yeah. Yeah, he did.” He laughed. “That’s funny. Matter of fact, I wonder if anyone else on the team is… in our position. There are certainly people who could be.” Vir rubbed his chin, considering.

“Drake straight up told us he doesn’t care. He might be, but… you never really know with that guy.” Quill nodded.

“True. Very true. What about Master Chief?” Quill asked.

“I don’t think he even understands the concept of romantic love,” snorted Vir in response. “There aren’t aliens were Cooper’s from, so no for him. Kirk?” “Maybe. Still not sure. He’s kinda a more classic good by-the-books officer. At least compared to us. Don’t know much about him,” said Quill. “Cain? He’s been on your ship.”

“Ha. Cain’s job description is to shoot people like us through the head, so, definite no.”

“Solo?”

“Also no. But Shepard…” trailed off Vir.

“Maybe. Got enough hot aliens on his crew.” Quill stood up. “And from what I’ve heard, they don’t care about inter-species relationships here.” That was true. The galaxies of Shepard, Kirk, Quill, and Solo didn't seem to care as much about that sort of thing.

“Weird how that works; some places don’t care, some do, some people care, some don’t,” observed Vir. He looked back up to the shadow of the Watch Eternal. It seemed much more menacing now.

“Yeah. But that wasn’t the reason I came here in the first place,” replied Quill. He leaned forward. “I wanted to know: can I count on your support if shit hits the fan, which it might?” Vir nodded.

“Yes, you can. Let’s hope it doesn't come to that.”

Thomas Drake sat alone in his room, the shut shades throwing light from bedside lamps in strange patterns around the room. A glass of simple lemon water sat on the broad desk he was occupying, idly making a ring in the synthetic wood. The hotel air conditioner hummed in the background, its noise enough to drive most into turning it off and complain to the management about its incessant racket. Not Drake. He had chosen to turn it on to maximum, the frigid air welcome on the horribly scarred tissue of his arms and chest. His usual jet black greatcoat, boots, and gloves had been discarded and were now carefully hung in the borrowed closet.

Drake did not simply wear them as a fashion statement. Oh, of course, they fit his style, intimidated his enemies, and brought out his most handsome features, but, like him, there was much more than met the eye. Tailored by a master to perfectly suit him, every item was woven with fibres strong enough to stop bullets, and a small cooling system in each one save the gloves. Drake looked sardonically at the skin of his upper arm. Yes. Cooling systems were necessary. The sweat glands of his body had been ravaged by wound after wound, by horrifying burns and scars. The worst was on his chest, the ancient reminder of his old platoon. Many burn victims, or those with extensive scarring, had trouble regulating their body temperature. Not him. No weakness would slow his inexhaustible march. The outfit covered all the weakness, all the pathetic failings of his flesh. In it, he was Thomas Drake, mercenary extraordinaire and the most interesting man in the galaxy. Flawless. Handsome. The epitome of personal perfection.

The scars never reached his face. Many people knew of them, but it was never public knowledge. His crew had seen him shirtless; for the most part they knew the story. Various… individuals knew of them, having the chance to gaze on them in intimate moments. He smiled quietly to himself. The old adage that scars were attractive was quite true for some. Of course, his charisma was enough to twist even the most hideous of burned tissue into captivating items of personal valor. Those… individuals would not share his secret.

The boots were armored and magnetized; additions that had saved his life in more than one occasion. The gloves were specially made to be able to grip things better than a normal human hand would, and electric circuits ran through them, allowing Drake to stun or kill with a single punch.

The coat also had another purpose: concealing weapons. The results of this purpose were currently spread over the desk in Drake’s room. There was no way he was going into a situation such as this without a plethora of deadly weapons at his command. Too much was unknown, too much was riding on his contract and reputation. So these devices… insurance. Circuitry was cleaned, bullets loaded, plasma cores were analyzed, and armor double, then triple checked.

He sighed, then leaned back in his chair. Perhaps he should go out… maybe for a drink. Scout out the area. Eat at the new (to him) restaurants of the citadel. No. Not yet. Those were all distractions. Duty first. Business before pleasure. He went back to loading bullets into the dozens of magazines scattered around his workspace.

#magnificent scoundrels #writing #my writing #story #fanfic #scifi #sci-fi

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keelywolfe · 4 years

Text

FIC: Beneath an Aurora Sky ch. 20

Summary: The South Pole Station is equipped for research and Edge has always made sure things run smoothly for the inhabitants. His charges are meant to follow his rules and regulations, and in turn, he makes sure they survive in the arctic temperatures. It takes plenty of hard work and determination and Edge, along with his crew, can handle both.

He wasn’t counting on one of the newest researchers. He wasn’t expecting Rus.

Tags: Spicyhoney, First Time, Arctic AU, Hurt/Comfort

~~*~~

Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four

Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven | Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine | Chapter Ten | Chapter Eleven | Chapter Twelve

Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17

Chapter 18 | Chapter 19

~~*~~

Read Chapter 20 on AO3

Read it here!

~~*~~

As Edge was walking towards the vehicle shed, he caught an acrid hint of cigarette smoke in the air. He followed it, not inside but around the back and sitting in the shadows of the halogen lights was Rus.

Edge could hardly disguise his approach, the crunch of his boots in the hard-packed snow would have carried in the still icy air long before he came around the corner. But Rus made no attempt to hide. He stayed where he was, a burning cigarette dangling from his gloved fingers as he gazed up at the aurora-filled sky.

He’d already been out here for some time while Edge and the others spoke with Toriel and Gaster. The cold would soon be seeping through his outdoor gear no matter how good it was, sinking its chill into Rus’s bones. Monsters felt the cold less than Humans did but they were by no means immune to it. They could be sickened, frostbitten, and some, like Alphys, tolerated it even less than Humans. As a skeleton, Rus’s endurance should match Edge and Red’s.

Then again, who knew the boundaries of a skeleton from an entirely other universe.

Edge sat down next to Rus, drawing up his knees to rest his arms on them. He looked up at the swirling aurora overhead, the blur of colors rippling together in tangled waves, a sky ocean born of solar particles colliding with the atmosphere.

“it’s so beautiful here.” Rus’s voice was almost too loud in the hush.

“Yes,” Edge agreed in a voice to match.

It was. His intention when they’d first arrived here was only to find a safe place for those in his care, Alphys and Undyne and his still-wounded brother, and later, for Bonnie. Somewhere they could be certain of their meals and shelter. Nothing more than a job to replace the one he lost with the guard and a feeble attempt at that.

He hadn’t expected to find beauty in the glacial whiteness, nor in the endless night sky. He never anticipated the satisfaction that came with seeing another group off, knowing he’d protected them and guided them through this dangerous beauty. He couldn’t have known how Undyne and Alphys would blossom here, both their love for each other and their lives, settling into their place. Or that Red would slowly find his own footing and perhaps he’d never adore the Humans that came here, but he had his own pride in his work, kept all the equipment in top form and helped Alphys in her designs for new additions for the station. And Bonnie, who’d come to them later and never discussed her own inner wounds, yet still seemed to be healing from them. Together they’d created a place of safety for them, a home.

Even after all that, he never could have braced himself for Rus. Who’d settle into their home like he belonged here, their missing puzzle piece. Only it seemed as if he’d come not from their picture, but an entirely different box.

“he told you, didn’t he.” It was impossible to tell if the fog of Rus’s breath was from the cold or the cigarette.

Edge said nothing. His promise to Toriel specified he couldn’t reveal what they’d spoken about. It did not preclude discussing it at all and he only waited as Rus chuckled bitterly, filling in the silence on his own.

“it’s funny,” Rus drawled, flicking ash into the snow, “i came all the way to the end of the world to escape my past and it still came after me.”

Edge thought of Toriel, currently cramped into one of the spare rooms and probably trying not to scrape her horns against the ceiling. “I know the feeling.”

“yeah, i know,” Rus said, grimacing, “i’m sorry. part of the deal of tori sponsoring me was i’d keep mum about back home. i promised.”

“I understand.”

“yeah, well, if i’d known they were gonna pop in unexpectedly, i would’ve warned you about that much, anyway.” Rus’s expression crumpled slightly, going brittle around the edges. “look, i love tori, she’s been nothing but good to me. moms her way into everything. but you guys got your reasons to not want her around, i get that.”

“Rus,” the cloud of his own breath briefly obscured his vision as Edge sighed, “even if they are here because of you, that doesn’t make it your fault.”

“doesn’t it? think what pissed me off most is i know dings is right,” Rus murmured. “he’s can be a little rough saying it, but he means well.”

The resignation in Rus’s voice made Edge bristle, “He accused you of being nothing more than a key made for a particular lock.”

“truth hurts.” It was startling to realize how he’d categorized Rus’s smiles in his own head, the bright, fake one and the softer, shyer truthful one that came with a measure of trust. This one was entirely new, tainted with deep bitterness, “bet big brother didn’t fill in the details, so let me give you the highlights of our family tree.”

“see, our pop was the royal scientist in our world, the real deal. i call him pop, but that’s mostly because it annoyed him. he wasn’t really our father, he was a dna donor. he didn’t even name us, we named ourselves.” Rus was sitting right next to Edge here in the deep cold and still seemed miles away, no, not miles, he was in another world entirely. “dings took his name. not like he really knew there were many options past that or just getting called number one. just as well, i guess, looks more like him than me or blue. dings named blue and they both named me.”

He slanted a glance at Edge, his bright eye lights dimmed behind his goggles. “dings was still really young when blue popped out, what did he know about names? baby bro’s magic was blue, so that’s what he went with. i came a few more years down the line and by then, they’d raided the librarby and found out that papyrus is a traditional skeleton monster name.” He chuckled then, some of the bitterness of his smile invading the sound. “like anything about us was traditional.”

“we were his own personal test tube babies, homegrown like fucking cabbages, and gaster made us to fulfill a specific role. see, the core was important work, sure, but what he was really trying to do was make a machine that could get us past the shield. turns out, third time is the charm for our old man. he made dings and blue first but neither of them could use void magic. i was his hail mary, his last shot, and whaddaya know, it worked.” Rus scowled, tamped out his burning butt into the snow. He dropped it into his little tin and lit another, inhaling deeply and breathing out a cloud of smoke. “he never let me forget what i was for, but dings and blue always tried to be the best brothers they could. after pops kacked, it wasn’t until dings got that machine working that it even came up again.” He shrugged, barely visible through the layers of his heavy coat. “i got to forget for a while, at least.”

Edge said nothing, what could he say? His childhood was hardly one ease and joy; it more resembled the fairy tales that Red sometimes read to him when he still the shorter of the two, listening with wide sockets to gruesome tales that seemed all too possible. It seemed Rus had his own experiences with a sort of wicked stepfather and it was every bit as terrible as those stories. The urge to pull him close, to keep him safe, was itching in Edge and he forcibly held it back, let Rus tell his story.

“i never expected the machine to actually work,” Rus admitted. “dings was messing with it for so long. then we were here. my bro was only supposed to talk to the royal scientist and we were gonna hightail it back. easy peasy lemon squeezy.” Rus chuckled darkly, “turned out the lemonade was too sour after all. dings was pretty upset to find out the guy he was looking for was gone and so was his successor.”

Rus’s smile eased into something warmer, familiar, “it was tori who got me to start studying, you know. my bros always kept me on a tight leash back home, it was dangerous to even go outside, but here? i went out, tried to make some friends, ended up sleeping around some. wasted time,” Rus admitted, “tori suggested i work on my degree. i didn’t see the point at first, our pop always told us our purpose. i was there to power the machine. but, tori has this thing about being everyone’s mom.”

“Indeed, she does,” Edge murmured, recalling his days imprisoned after the coup, with good meals and care instead of execution.

“i think maybe that’s why she’s such a good queen. she told me pops was wrong,” Rus laughed a little in a puff of smokey breath and shook his head. “told me he was an asshole, actually, and that i deserved to have what i wanted out of life.”

“we argued about it, me and dings. drove blue nuts. blue was…he was the failure, pops said. at least dings was a scientist, but blue couldn’t even manage that. dings always told him his purpose was to be our caretaker and he tried damn hard at it.” Rus sighed, dropping his head back against the shed siding with a muffled thunk, “he hates it when we fight.”

“But you did it,” Edge said softly, “you got your degree, you’re working on your PhD and you’re doing a good job of it, at that.” Even through the growing cold he felt an inner warmth at the smile Rus flashed him, the real one.

“i did. i got so close.” Rus’s voice broke slightly, “things were horrible when we left, i can’t even imagine how they are now. and dings, he needs to fix the core. that was the skill that was built into him.” His smile soured back into bitterness, “it’s a compulsion, i don’t think he can help it. he has to be better than our pop. he has to be the one to save us all. blue believes everyone is worth saving, but he’s a protector, and me? i’m just a battery. i was never meant to have any of this.”

A honey-tinted tear slipped out from beneath his goggles and wound its way down, slowly freezing against the chilled bone of Rus’s skull and Edge’s control broke. He crawled across the short distance between them, scuffled through the snow and pulled Rus into his arms. He held on briefly, achingly tight before drawing back far enough to shake him, a little, and Rus looked at him with wide, startled eye lights.

“You are more than simply your father’s intentions,” Edge told him fiercely. “You’re brilliant and kind, and…and funny…wonderful…” He choked, unable to express the wild emotions burning in his soul; if there were words for it, Edge did not know them. Love was too shallow a word, too small, it couldn’t possibly hold everything Edge was feeling, all of it strangled in grief.

Rus reached up and his gloved fingers were gentle against Edge’s cheekbone. “it’s okay,” he said, softly, “i always knew we’d have to go back. i got to see this. i got to be with you. it’s okay,” he said again, crooned it, as if Edge were the one in pain. Perhaps he was, his soul ached as fiercely as if it was threatening to crack. “i saw so much here on the surface. i got to see the stars, i got to come here and see this.” He looked up at the sky, at the brilliant colors still churning within it along with a million twinkling lights looking down on them. “i was never going to get to stay, but i got to see this.”

“It’s not enough,” Edge said hoarsely. Not enough, Rus was supposed to leave here and go back into the sun, and instead, he was going where Edge could never follow, couldn’t protect him, and again, Edge would have given a portion of his own grieving soul not to see that sadness infecting Rus’s smile.

“i love you, you know,” Rus told him, achingly soft. “i know it’s not fair to tell you now, but i can’t keep it to myself. i need you to know it.”

Edge closed his sockets, shutting out Rus’s face and the aurora, saw only blackness and it wasn’t the cold that sent a tremor through him. Then he opened them again, looked into Rus’s face and saw the truth of it, the yearning. And the hopelessness. The need to say it back burned, words already forming on his tongue, but instead Edge blurted, “Stay the two weeks.”

Rus blinked, startled. That was clearly not the reaction he expected to his quiet confession, “but, the people—"

“It’s been two years,” Edge countered, “two weeks means nothing to your world and everything to you. Don’t let your brother’s compulsion drive you. Toriel—"

He almost said she was on his side, couldn’t, his knowledge was gleaned from their talk and words already thickening in his throat, his promise threatening to choke him when Rus kissed him softly, stopping him.

“i can guess about tori,” Rus said quietly, then, softer, “two more weeks.” He looked up again and even behind his goggles, the auroras couldn’t match the soft beauty of his eye lights. “there’s no stars back home. i’m gonna miss them.”

He fell silent, leaning against Edge’s side. Edge wrapped an arm around him and pulled Rus in closer, holding him tightly through the layers of his coat. He was starting to shiver; they were both getting too cold and he was about to suggest they move into the vehicle shed at the very least when Rus spoke again.

“it got so bad towards the end,” Rus whispered, “we stayed holed up in the lab, mostly, but we could see what was happening. monsters were getting more violent, losing control, gaining lv. pops’ diagrams on the core were incomplete. it was dings’s idea to come to another world and check theirs. i had to come, of course and we couldn’t leave Blue alone, so we all came.”

Rus kicked one booted foot idly, scraping up snow with his heel. “s’weird. even the snow is different here. back home it seems…stale somehow. used. maybe it’ll be better when dings gets the core up and running.” Rus sighed. “i never would have come to the station if i’d thought he was close to a breakthrough. it’s weird, i thought i had enough time.” Rus drew back a little, looking at Edge with that soft smile back in place. “but it sure wasn’t a waste.”

Almost, Edge kissed him again, hesitated with their mouths a breath away. Something about what Rus said niggled, something… “Weird.”

“heh,” Rus chuckled, “it’s double weird hearing you say weird. doesn’t seem like your kind of slang, bossman.”

Edge barely heard him. His brother had a breakthrough on the core, Rus said, an unexpected breakthrough. Edge cursed himself, replaying what Rus told him. He'd been foolishly focused on the information about Rus and why they were here, not on what changed to bring them to the station.

"What was your brother studying, exactly?” Edge demanded. He took Rus’s shoulders in both gloved hands, holding him, “You said he was looking for information about the Core."

Rus blinked uncertainly, his browbone furrowing, “um, papers, mostly. tori has lots of stuff from the old royal scientist, dings was wading through tons of it. i didn’t see much, he didn’t want any help. he was afraid we’d miss something. guess he found what he was looking for.”

“Yes, I think he did,” Edge said sourly, “A patsy.” Edge climbed to his feet and held out a hand to help Rus, “I’d like to know what was in those notes your brother found and I think we should ask the former royal scientist.”

“what?” Rus wobbled for a second, catching his balance after sitting for so long, “seriously? you think they’d talk to you? tori said they don’t—

“I should hope so,” Edge said, dryly, “she’s in her lab.” And very likely watching them on her cameras.

Rus went still, croaking out, “alphys??”

“You didn’t know?” Edge slanted Rus a look, but he believed him.

“no!” Rus spluttered, already heading back towards the station, Edge trailing after him. “tori didn’t talk about it, i didn’t even think to ask anyone else, why would i?”

“Maybe your brother isn’t as discriminating,” Edge said, under his breath, letting the wind tear the words away. It was more than a little suspicious that his brother solved the issue of core technology when Rus was in the only place that possessed a replica of the original. Edge didn’t believe in coincidence.

“Rus,” Edge jogged to catch up, taking hold of Rus’s elbow to stop him as he asked, “Do you trust me?”

“yes,” Rus said, unhesitatingly.

“I trust you, too,” Edge said, softly, and leaned in to give him a brief, chilly kiss. “Come on. You’re freezing and I have questions.”

“you’re the boss,” Rus said. It was only a shadow of his normally teasing self, but it was something. He took Rus’s gloved hand in his own and together, they made their way to the main building.

tbc

#spicyhoney #papcest #keelywolfe #underfell #underswap #underfell papyrus #underswap papyrus #arctic au

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jeonggukkiepabo · 4 years

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Arctic Fox [PJM]

HAPPY VALENTINESDAY MY LOVES. Especially to my little victim, @chiminiemoans. I hope you’re doing well, angel.

Love, Leni

I didn’t know what to write in the beginning, but I somehow ended up with a little arctic fox hybrid!jimin thingy.

WORDS: 2k

WARNINGS: who am i even kidding this is pure fluff

Things changed since that one summer three years ago. Your boyfriend broke up with you because of that ‘weird’ pet you found in front of your house during one of the hottest nights that year. It was a beautiful arctic fox, fur not as white as it used to be due to the dusty sand and some wood sticking to it because of its adventures. The fox was rolled into a fluffy ball, tail covering its eyes as it laid next to your doorstep in the shadow, panting in its sleep.

You were about to head out for your morning run, trying to avoid the heat that would come around within the next hour, when you saw the little guy. Of course, you were afraid to touch it in the beginning – weren’t foxes dangerous? And how come that an arctic fox made its way to your door? As far as you knew, they were common in the northern parts of Europe, but also in Alaska and Canada – not in South Korea. Slowly, you walk towards the little guy, trying not to scare him even more than he probably already is. As soon as your feet touch the ground, the fox awakes with a screech, jumping to his feet and backing up against the house wall. “Don’t be scared, baby”, you cooed with a pout as you held your hand in front of your body to let him take a sniff. “I don’t want to hurt you, really.” Kneeling in front of him, you waited patiently until the fox made its first step towards you.

Shaking, the fox moved one step towards you, trying to get a whiff of your scent. To him, you smelled familiar. Too familiar, too human. He hisses, showing you his teeth, but you just smiled. “Aren’t you thirsty? You must be so hot, your fur is way too thick for this summer heat, hm?”

Turning around, you grabbed your water bottle and poured some water into your hand – debating whether you should go and grab a bowl for him, but who knows if he would take the chance and run away from you? “Come on”, you cooed, smiling as the fox slowly moved towards you, tongue hanging out of his mouth to regulate the temperature. His eyes scanned you carefully - and you would kill in this moment to touch his little nose to give it a boop. He tilted his head, waiting for your reaction, but you stayed still, desperately wanting his trust. Now the fox was standing right in front of you, sniffing his surroundings before he decided that you wouldn’t hurt him – not like all the other humans he’d met so far.

You giggled as his rough tongue touched your palm, desperately drinking up all the water it in, but the few drops weren’t enough. He looked at you demandingly, squeaking a few times until you gave in with a laugh and poured more water, waiting for him until he was satisfied. “What now?” You smiled at him, carefully scratching the soft fur behind his small, white ears. “Shouldn’t your fur turn darker during the summertime?” The fox tilted his head again – and you could swear you heard him sigh -, until he buried his snout in your palm and closed his eyes. “Do you need to cool down? Now, come on, I’ll take you inside, the sun will come out even stronger soon.” You walked back inside, surprised that the little fox followed every step you made and immediately laid down on the cold tiled kitchen floor.

Once your boyfriend came home hours later – and found you on the floor, playing with a freaking fox, he jumped into the dining table, a scared expression written all over his face. “Y/N, there is a fox right next to you…”, he mumbles. “Why?”

You laughed, petting the fox’s fur. “I found him on our porch, look at that cute little baby” You pressed a kiss to his cold snout, giggling as he licked your cheek before jumping onto you. “Y/N!”

“Don’t worry, Joonie. He won’t attack me; he just loves to play!” Namjoon rolled his eyes, not trusting the wild animal that you apparently decided to adopt. “Yeah, not with me in the house, sorry Y/N, but that’s just crazy.” Slowly, Namjoon backed up, walking out of the room. “Text me when that thing is gone, okay?” The fox hissed, teeth flinched as he watched your boyfriend run out of your house, leaving you with a sad frown on your face. “He doesn’t understand it”, you sighed, but smiled as soon as the fox cuddled into you.

Weeks later, Namjoon decided to never come back because he wasn’t “comfortable with a deadly animal” in your house. You could understand his fear, but your little fox was never showing any wild characteristics – he even scratched your front door whenever he needed to… use the woods. He was eating lots of food, getting all his energy back, growing with each day. Soon enough, your little fox wasn’t little anymore, playtime got much more powerful and he knew he had to be careful with you so you wouldn’t get hurt.

Around two months into your shared life, things got weird. Every time you came home from work, your house looked much cleaner than you left it. Sometimes, you found some wet footprints that weren’t yours. And most of the time, food was missing from your fridge. “Foxy, are you doing your job in keeping our house safe?”, you jokingly asked your pet as you were sitting on the couch, scratching his ears. The fox looked at you, confusion written over his face. He for sure shows lots of emotions for an animal. You sighed, shaking your head. “I can’t believe I’m asking you that. You know, sometimes it really feels like I’ve got a friend in you. Damn, I really am lonely, huh?”

The fox sighed once more, suddenly running in circles, not knowing what to do. “Foxy! What’s gotten into you, slow down!” But then, Foxy starts running into your bedroom, where a loud thump was heard. “Foxy!”, you screamed, quickly going after him. But when you opened the bedroom door, you gasped. Instead of foxy, there was a man getting dressed in front of you. “HELP!”, you yelled, backing off. “Help! Thief! Rapist!” You run towards your front door, but two strong arms captured you. “Sh, Y/N! Calm down, it’s me”, a melodic voice whispered in your ear – and that’s when you saw it. White ears poking out of the stranger’s hair, a soft tail wrapped around his waist. “Fo… Foxy?”

“Actually, it’s Jimin. I didn’t want to scare you, Y/N. As you can see, I’m not a normal arctic fox, I’m more likely a hybrid, but I can shift into a real fox. It takes much strength to live in human form and when I came to your house, I was at my lowest. It took me some time to regain strength, but you really fed me well”, Jimin laughed. But you were still confused and speechless.

“But… I mean… That’s why… I can’t….”, you blabbered, causing Jimin to laugh again. “Let’s sit down, before you collapse in my arms, hm?” Jimin walked you to your couch, rushing into the kitchen to get you a glass of water before plopping down next to you. “There was nobody in your house, Y/N. The cleaning, that was me. I thought… I thought the least I could do is helping you out. It wasn’t until two weeks ago that I regained my strength, this heat is really horrible, you know. And once I was able to shift again, I thought it would be the best to clean up the mess I made as a fox. But then I couldn’t help but take a real shower. Even as a fox it is terrible to rely on my tongue to get clean, look at me, my fur needs to be flawless!” Jimin pointed to his soft tail, causing you to giggle.

“It is beautiful”, you whispered as you touched his small ears. Jimin closed his eyes, humming softly. “That was always my favorite part. Cuddles, scratching and sleeping next to you. I was born in a zoo, you know. One day I finally made it: I escaped. I had nobody in there, I was trapped in this stupid cage and always had to be outside so the guests could look at me. I… I’ve never seen snow!” An arctic fox that had never seen snow. You couldn’t help the tears that were forming in your eyes, lips trembling.

“Aish, Y/N, don’t worry, I’m fine! You can’t miss something you’ve never had, right?” Jimin smiled, but you could see that he was hurt. You pouted, not knowing what you could to do help him. “I’ve never had a family, I got separated from my mother and siblings before I was able to open my eyes. That’s probably the worst part, being alone. That’s why I’m glad you chose to take me inside with you, you weren’t like those zoo-workers.” Jimin looked down, biting his lip in anticipation. “You’ll kick me out, am I right?”

Your eyes widened; lips pressed into a flat line. “I… I don’t know, Jimin. You’re… Human. And I don’t know anything about you besides the fact that you can shift into a fox and have seen me naked a couple of times.” Then, you realized one thing. “You’ve seen me naked!” Jimin chuckled, shrugging his shoulders. “That wasn’t the worst part of being an animal, I guess. But don’t worry, I’ve got my instincts under control”, he winked at you, making you blush once more. Then, his face got serious again. “I’m really sorry for using you like that, Y/N. And about Namjoon…”

You stopped him immediately. “No. He isn’t a part of my life anymore and that’s not your fault, Jimin. He wasn’t that good of a boyfriend either. He worked to much and came to fuck, that’s it.” Jimin’s ears poked up as soon as the f-word left your mouth. His cheeks blushed, eyes suddenly following little dust particles flying around.

You gasped, cheeks turning equally red. “You… You hear well, don’t you?” Jimin nodded. “You’ve… heard me and my…” “Your vibrator? Yup”, Jimin bit his lip, tail swinging around, causing more dust to fill the air. “I tried not to, really. But you’re really loud.” A giggle left his plush lips and you wanted nothing more than to run away. “I’m so, so sorry.” “Don’t be, love. It’s natural”, Jimin shrugged, “I do that too. And my sex drive is higher”, he wiggled his eyebrows. “Animal perks, huh.” He tilted his head, batting his long eyelashes at you. “You sound beautiful. Most nights I slept in front of your door, listening to your whimpers while wanting to be the one to pleasure you. You know, foxes have… rough tongues.”

Raising an eyebrow, you tried to understand this situation, how could this cute, fluffy fox suddenly change its mood into something that… seductive? He was basically purring at you. “Jimin”, you whispered, not sure how to act in that situation. On one hand, you were needy and turned on to the max, but he was a hybrid. A hybrid which you thought was your pet until around an hour ago. But instead of that, a beautiful man, no, god, sat in front of you, smirking at you like he was going to devour you any time soon. He was a hunter and you were his prey.

“Please, let me show you how well you treated me, you saved my life. Let me make it up for you.”

Gulping, you nodded at him. “Okay.”

That night, almost 2 years ago, changed a lot for you. Looking up at your boyfriend that gently rubbed his cheek against your hair while his tail was carefully wrapped around your stomach, you couldn’t help but smile. “One more month”, you whispered against his chest, gently stroking your belly. As if your little one heard it, a strong kick causes you to hiss. “I swear to god, Park fucking Jimin, if you put a fox in my stomach, I’m going to murder you.” Jimin giggles, pressing a gentle kiss on top of your stomach before licking it with his rough tongue. “As far as I remember, you always had a special love for some of my fox features.”

#park jimin #secretadmirer2020 #ksmutclub #bangtansmutcentral #magicshopnet #bangtanarmynet #bts #jimin #jimin fanfiction #jimin fluff #fluff #fanfictoin #kim taehyung #kim seokjin #kim namjoon #jeon jungkook #jung hoseok #min yoongi #smutcentralnet

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ohnomybreadsticks · 4 years

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A perfect time to post this, as I am laid up at home with a cold lol. I love a good sick fic, although somehow I didn’t get to too much of the comfort part at the end XD This will be up on my AO3 as well, hope you enjoy!

Rating: T (warning for emetophobia), ~1K, “Witchers Don’t Get Sick”

Geralt has been travelling alone for about a week when he feels the first scratch in his throat. He and the bard have parted ways for a while as is their normal routine - sometimes a job will pull Geralt in the opposite direction as a particularly tempting festival, and Jaskier will take his leave with much bowing and waving. Geralt doesn’t mind, because he knows they’ll inevitably stumble across each other again. And besides, the silence is a welcome break, allowing him to focus on his craft and his work. Roach is a silent yet comforting presence as she always has been, and Geralt lets his mind drift into a meditative lull as they ride along the road.

The scratch in his throat as he swallows takes Geralt off guard. It’s an uncomfortable sensation, a hint of pain at the edge of his mind, and at first he just assumes he’s dehydrated. Must not have taken enough breaks to stop and rest. Because while Witchers do need human things like rest and water, they certainly don’t get sick. Geralt reminds himself that when he wakes the next day and finds himself coughing, his throat more raw and uncomfortable by the minute. As he isn’t sick, there’s no need to stop and rest. He’s at least a day out from the nearest town anyways, and if he wants to snag a contract soon to replenish his rapidly dwindling coin, he needs to keep riding.

So Geralt rides along the dusty road, barely needing to guide Roach, who knows well enough not to stray off the path even if she spots a particularly tasty bush. Yesterday, the weather had been warm but not too hot, the chill of spring still clinging to the breeze that tugs at Geralt’s carefully pulled-back hair (Jaskier’s insistence, after the last time Geralt got into a fight and the monster ripped out a sizable chunk of his hair). But today, with the sun beating down on him, Geralt is suddenly burning up in his armor. Which makes no sense, he knows, since he should be able to regulate his body temperature better than this. All he can focus on now though is the slick feeling of sweat trickling down his neck.

It’s like Geralt’s mind is clouded, all of his usually impressive focus narrowed down onto the way his body feels. He’s so hot, he needs to get out of his armor, but common sense dictates that would be an incredibly dangerous move out here in the wilds. So he rides on, wiping sweat off his brow, trying to reach that state of peaceful meditation again. It’s no use though, as his throat is pulsing angrily with every swallow, and his stomach has started to churn with the slow rocking of Roach’s back. Fuck, has he been cursed? The thought strikes Geralt with a sudden pang of fear, and he thinks of taking one of his witcher’s potions to try and shake off any lingering magic. Unfortunately, the thought of drinking one of the dark herbal brews has his stomach finally revolting, and he barely makes it out of the saddle before he’s retching, bile burning up his already agonized throat on the way out.

Roach shuffles nervously next to him, and Geralt knows he should reassure his mount, but suddenly the added heat of her body in any proximity to his is unbearable. He stumbles away, wiping at his mouth, clumsy fingers fumbling for the ties and buckles on his armor. Fuck common sense, if he doesn’t get this armor off he’s going to boil to death. Leaning against a tree for stability, he’s fighting one particularly stubborn buckle when he hears a sound - a voice - in the distance.

“Hello Roach! Has your silly witcher left you all alone here? What’s he up to, saving some poor damsel in distress?”

The voice is familiar, but with his head swimming like it is, Geralt can’t place it. There’s an exclamation of disgust as whoever it is finds the mess he’s left behind, and then a concerned call of “Geralt?” He wants to respond but his mouth feels absolutely vile and his throat is in immense amounts of pain. His hands are still fumbling at that damn buckle when suddenly a figure comes into view - a smudge of purple - when did his vision get fuzzy - it’s coming closer - he should probably draw his sword -

And then everything goes dark. Geralt is dimly aware of someone yelling, and soft hands are tugging at him, but it seems like something happening to him in a dream.

The next time he gains consciousness, there’s a cool cloth pressed against his forehead, and he’s laying on something soft. He groans, and the feeling is like drinking sand, it aches so badly. There’s a hand under his head, lifting him up, and a cool glass of water pressed to his lips. It hurts to swallow, but he does it anyways, realizing how parched he is as soon as the first splash of water lands on his tongue. It’s only once Geralt’s head lands back on the pillow that he thinks to turn his head, seeking out the face of the person who’s been so gentle with him.

It’s Jaskier, because it’s always Jaskier, in the end, and Geralt finds himself comforted more than he would have expected by the sight of the bard’s half-hearted smile. “You gave me quite the fright” Jaskier says, “I’ve never seen you sick before. Had to haul you up onto Roach all by myself so we could ride into town!”

“Witchers don’t get sick” Geralt counters, but his words come out as a croak, and he coughs for a good half a minute afterwards.

Jaskier simply shakes his head, the worry obvious in the bags under his eyes and the way his hand rests so tenderly on Geralt’s arm. “And bards don’t play nursemaid. You just lay there and rest, I’ll take care of you.” he says. And Geralt, well, he has never know Jaskier to be a liar, so he lets his eyes slip closed with the knowledge that he’ll be looked after as he sleeps.

#Witcher #geraskier #geralt #jaskier #bready's fic #request fill

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deathsficbin · 3 years

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Here I come sliding into home base on my ass as per usual. This one is different from my usual list of fics and not only because it's not even Star Wars. This one was written for the RvB Valentine's Exchange hosted by @rvbgiftexchange My exchange partner requested something with not only a less popular character but their OC too which is something I've never done before. I'm a stickler for getting everything "right" so having to ask questions and occasionally just go with my gut was hard. But it was a really nice challenge and I really enjoyed stepping out of my comfort zone to get this one done. Hope it's what you were looking for @nyx-the-dreamer

Fandom: Red vs. Blue

Rated: T

He sits quietly, dangling his legs off the side of roof. The sun is warm, he can feel it's heat even through the exposed bits of his bodyglove. He's on watch. What for he doesn't really know but it's loads better than being stuck in the basement listening to Sarge yell at Griff and Simmons. Or in the main room listening to Tucker walk Caboose through the rules for go fish again. Or in the control room listening to Donut spew worse entendres than Cronut ever had. Of the two, Donut is definitely the worst.

He still can't believe he's living under the same roof with these idiots. The time machine ordeal had been... messy. A few confusing months of distorted timelines, all spent in a dark prison cell somewhere on Chorus. Eventually things smoothed out and news that the Reds and Blues and saved the day once again trickled down to his personal hell. Then the bastards had showed up out of nowhere, Carson in tow demanding he be remanded to their care. He still doesn't know why. And frankly he still doesn't like any of them but Carson seems to get along with them and the food is a thousand times better so he followed along and puts up with his new "team".

"Hey."

Speaking of...

He turns to see the familiar form of his actual teammate crawling up onto the roof. Carson has always been a bit of an enigma too him. Kind, smart, and loyal to a fault. At first he had been just another teammate. Another means to the ultimate end of revenge against the freelancers and the UNSC. Now? Now he's a friend. The first he's had since... well, the first in a very long time.

"Hey." He answers. Carson sits next him, back propped against the wall and one knee cocked up while his other leg swings loose. He squints slightly, the afternoon sun shines directly against his face, casting shadows over his scarred eye. He's not sure what the scar is from. Carson doesn't talk much about his past, nor where he came from. He suspects it is the result of some childhood fight with an unfortunately armed opponent, or perhaps an animal attack. The eye itself works. Advanced cybernetics can be thanked for that but the scar is too old and too deep to be repaired. The skin would have to be dug out, replaced and grafted completely to get rid of the gouges and that simply takes too much time and money for the UNSC to afford. And at this point, the scar is a part of him. For better or for worse.

"Watcha doing?" He asks. Temple shrugs.

"Avoiding Sarge." He says. That much is the truth. He's not really keeping watch. Nothing to watch for anyway. Unless one wants to know where Tucker sneaks off too when he thinks no one is watching.

"Better stay out of the basement then. He's got Simmons and Caboose scrubbing the floor." Carson says. He snorts. Sometimes he wonders how these idiots have ever managed to survive much less actually save the whole of humanity.

"What're you up too?" He asks. He's trying. Griff and Tucker had, unfortunately made a good point months ago when they asked him what friends he actually had. At the time the answer had been none. Now, he's trying his best to be able to say he has at least one.

"Just got off Wash duty." Carson says, picking casually at his armor.

"How's he?" He asks. He doesn't really care. Agent Washington is still a freelancer. Still the enemy. He and Carolina both. But Washington is rather... different since they last met. Brain damage caused by cerebral hypoxia has made him almost childish in nature. Someone has to watch him at all times or else he'll get himself into rather avoidable situations. Temple is not allowed too watch him. Tucker and Carolina nearly shot him point blank when someone suggested it so he's been taken off the rotation. And while he's found he's no longer happy to see the freelancer's hurt, at the same time he doesn't particularly care. But everyone else does. And he's gotten good at pretending. Maybe someday he'll be able to trick himself into caring.

"He's managing to stay on one subject." Carson says. "Talks about cats. A lot. Like, fixates on cats. Which is good. That means he can string together thoughts but the fixation can be weird sometimes."

Carson is rambling now. He didn't really want to know all of this but it matters to him so he's trying to listen. Trying to care. It's not going so well. He doesn't really know what to say so he tries for something in between caring and not interested.

"Yeah?" Apparently it's the right thing to say. Carson nods enthusiastically and waves his arms around wildly.

"Yeah. Yesterday it was bullets. He's more confused when when its things like that. I think they remind him too much of the injury." He says. Temple shrugs. Bullets. Brain damage. Washington. He's alive. He should be grateful he and Carolina managed to escape his decidedly genius trap months ago. But no. That's not right. He was in the wrong. Or at least he knows he should think that. He's not sure what he thinks anymore. Thoughts about the freelancers give him a headache and he can't make himself manage more than a shrug.

"But enough about Wash. Let's talk about something else." Carson says. Temple bites back a chuckle.

"Am I that obvious?" He asks. Carson grins. It's a nice smile. Not something he gets to see everyday and he really does enjoy the times he does get to see it.

"You're allowed to not like people. You're just not allowed to try and kill them." He warns. It was meant to be funny. He knows that much but he can't bring himself to do more than smile at it. Carson frowns.

"You ok?" He asks. Temple shrugs.

"I just- I don't know. We live on a base with our enemies. These guys tried to kill us and now we're all baking cookies together and babysitting their pet freelancer like one big happy family. How are you not fucking terrified right now?" He hadn't really meant to say all of that. Carson didn't need to know or deal with his insecurities but now that its out he's curious what his teammate thinks about their situation. Carson snorts and shifts. His forest green armor catches the sunlight.

"Well, compared to the twice a year family get-togethers I've been dodging, living with these guys is pretty damn tame." He says. He shifts again and scratches at his forearm. He does that sometimes, seemingly without thought. Possibly he has an old injury that just aches sometimes. Or possibly tennis elbow from constantly pushing Donut away from the oven before he burns the entire base down.

"Besides. I'm here. So it's not all bad. Right?" He says. Temple shrugs. Yeah. He would still be in a jail cell if not for him, and at least with him around there is a familiar and kind face. At least he has a friend.

"Yeah. Not so bad I guess." He teases. Carson laughs.

"Oh is that all." He says. Temple turns to snap back but halts at the sight. Carson's face is red, an embarrassed flush standing out against his normally pale face. It not was He was expecting and suddenly he wonders if he's missed something. The smiles, undeserved loyalty, and never-ending kindness.

"Are you...? Are you making a pass at me?" He asks. The realization is sudden and jarring. How long has that been happening? Was this recent? Or had this always been the norm? Carson smiles. From below comes an annoyed snort. Temple looks down, unsurprised to see Tucker standing below them. He's leaning against the wall, either getting a breather from being inside with the others or deliberately eavesdropping. Likely both.

"Mind your buisness Tucker." He snaps. The cyan soldier looks up. His helmet is on but Temple can imagine the smirk.

"No way dude. I'm invested. He's only been doing it since for-freaking-ever ago." He snaps. Ok. Ok. So its been happening for a while than. A loose piece of debris flies across his field of vision, smacking against the Blue's head and bouncing to the ground.

"Shut up Tucker." Carson shouts. Tucker grumbles something, too quiet to hear but he turns and steps inside, the door shutting behind him. It's quiet again, the late afternoon sun shines brightly on its way down. Temple doesn't really know what to say at this point so he heaves a deep breath and peers at his companion.

"So...?" He asks. Technically Carson never replied. Never confirmed nor denied so technically he's the one that is supposed to speak next. Instead, his teammate stands, brushes himself off and shoots him a grin.

"Think about it. We'll get there." He says. He doesn't wait for a reply, turning and walking off to the doorway. It shuts behind him and Temple is left by himself.

He sits quietly, dangling his legs off the side of the roof. The sun is sinking low, it's warm touch fading, he can feel the cool air of evening even as his bodyglove's temperature regulation kicks in. He's on watch though he probably should have traded out long ago. What he's watching for he doesn't really know but it doesn't really matter either. It's loads better than being stuck in the main room listening to Tucker tease him about his years of blindness. Or in the basement listening to Griff and Simmons snigger at him. Or, worst of all, in the control room listening to Donut spew horrible entendres than he'll never be able to forget.

No. It's better out here. Out here he can think. He can watch. He can wait.

And out here, he can smile.

#redvsblue #rvb #rvb temple #rvb fic

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