#oh fug I almost forgot

[pickles4nickles]

Pickles Played Persona 5 Tactica and Has Some Words

I finally finished Tactica and its DLC sans some challenge stuff and I do wanna do some cleanup, but I thought I'd write a review for it.

It's long (like, 3k words long) and there's spoilers and overall... it's an Okay(tm) game, but... here, just lemme talk about it a bunch:

Alright, I'm not gonna mince words.

Persona 5 Tactica is not a game I can reccomend to anyone.

But is it a bad game?

Well, no.

But I have no idea who it's for.

Maybe it's for people who want more of the P5 characters? Not exactly? Both stories' focal points are on new characters and the Phantom Thieves just kinda happen to be there. There are some nice interactions, but this isn't a story about the PTs like Strikers.

Is it for people who like tactics but aren't really into P5? Well... it might be the other way around, actually? It's an okay tactics game with persona elements, but both parts of that are watered down when compared to base game persona and other tactics games like XCOM.

With that being said, lemme just ramble about what I thought about the story and gameplay.

THE STORY

The best way I can sum up my feelings about Tactica are "the story was told well, but I'm not sure if I liked it." This is a game that's less about the Phantom Thieves and more about Toshiro and Erina and focuses around the internal conflict of rebellion versus self-preservation.

Toshiro is probably why I'm neutral towards the game At Best. Erina grew on me but Toshiro...

Ehh.

At the beginning of the game, he's a big wimp and he's constantly telling the PTs and Erina that they have to be careful. From a theming standpoint, Toshiro's behavior makes perfect sense.

But from the petty bitch inside of me, this is infuriating because not only do YOU know that this is the Phantom Thieves that have taken down Shido (and also Yaldaboth), but TOSHIRO knows it as well and he's being Like This.

Like, he kinda sucks in the beginning and does so for the first two acts, understandably, but by the third act, when The Big Persona Moments happen, my opinion of him just kinda stayed the same. They swayed in a different direction, but... still on the negative side of the spectrum.

The reveal of Erina as Toshiro's Persona... makes sense. She's Toshiro's spirit(?) of rebellion and is based off of his classmate that once inspired him to stand up for himself and others.

Did I like this revelation?

Hell no, I was punching my thigh and screaming in voice call "No fucking way, Toshiro's so lame, though" as loud as I could without upsetting my parents in the other rooms.

From this point on, Toshiro now has the resolve to do what's right, even if it's scary... but he comes off as a little too strong in my opinion. I kinda have the same feelings about Zenkichi once he gets his persona in Strikers. In the beginning they feel like a new character meant to balance out the insanity that is how the metaverse is, but once they get their persona, they're full on inundated in the anime stand battles and they're a little too extra about it.

Having two full acts of "hey guys maybe we shouldn't help the hat people out of hat people slavery," pivoting into "WITNESS OUR POWER AS ONE" has the same vibes as a relative who's not really an asshole, but one that you've been trying to convince for years that economic inflation is the reason why our generation can't live comfortably, and once they finally understand, they come off a little bit too strong and righteous about it that you're not sure they're genuine or if this is a "he's a little confused, but he's got the spirit" situation.

And then god happens.

In persona games, I usually don't fully understand how or why the god-being is doing all of this, but I especially can't wrap my head around how they work in Tactica. It's mostly because Toshiro's metaverse is kind of a Silent Hill kinda deal where it's a mental torture labyrinth for him personally, as opposed to Mementos, which is naturally the collective unconscious, connecting everyone's minds and hearts together.

The jump from "I'm going to bully this one guy in particular" to "now EVERYONE will be as lame as Toshiro" is lost on me. Maybe politics?

It's... it's fine, there's no reason to lose sleep over it.

The ending of the story is nice and reasonable, though. It sorta redeems Toshiro for me. It's one thing to yell in your own metaverse hellscape how you're going to do the right thing, but once he's back in the real world, he actually stands up to his dad and fiancé and steps down from his political position to build it back up from scratch, but better.

And, yeah! I respect that.

That being said, though, the game isn't devoid of new Phantom Thief interactions. There's some good ones like Futaba "I don't kinkshame" Sakura, casually bi Joker as seen in that one "who would you marry" bit, and a guys only sidequest in which they think they're looking for Toshiro's porn stash (yeah, I know) (it's not). I wouldn't say it's crumbs, but you're not getting the whole loaf that you'd get from, say, Mementos Mission or Strikers.

The story also does this thing where the Phantom Thieves can relate with Toshiro's issues, but something about it feels... off.

Toshiro's in an arranged marriage with Marie for political reasons! Just like Haru! His fiancé sees him as a pushover! Kinda like Makoto! His mom died when he was young and he blames himself for it! Wow, Yusuke and DEFINITELY Futaba can relate to that!! Eri, the real person that Erina is based on, had to transfer schools because she was accused of a crime! Gee, that SURE sounds familiar-

Part of me thinks I'm being a little too unfair on the game for creating parallels like this because Strikers also kinda did this. But in Strikers, the PTs being able to connect with the jail rulers was integral to the plot. Here, it's just kind of a wink wink nudge nudge kinda thing.

And my knee-jerk reaction to that is a small "I get it, shut uuuup."

Again, and overall because I think that rounds out what I have to say about the story, P5 Tactica's main story isn't bad. It's told well, but I'm not necessarily the biggest fan of it.

GAMEPLAY

I've only played Strikers and I don't think I've played a true tactics game, so I don't know how much weight my opinions hold.

So um.

I dunno, the gameplay was fine.

The pacing is weird because it's kind of a visual novel first, and a tactics game in-between, but I got used to that after a bit.

It's a really simple tactics game and... yeah things don't get too complex outside of sometimes there are buttons that'll open doors or raise and lower platforms, sometimes height matters, but the mechanics don't get too crazy outside of certain boss battles.

The game revolves around downing enemies to get Once More's so you can either encase the enemy in a triangle formed by your units to initiate an All-out Attack or you can chain together Once More's to extend your unit's range and move them across the map. This mechanic took a bit for me to understand fully, but I never really got tired of doing it.

Boss battles were kind of hit or miss in this game. The fights with Toshiro's Dad and Salmael I enjoyed as they were kinda formatted as "here's a weird stage, go figure out what to do." However, Marie and *checks notes* "the scary Eri Natsuhara that Shadow Toshiro made" I didn't care for as much since they changed the game from "your decisions on where to move your units are key for this" to "you need to do exactly as we say." Which always kinda sucks, y'know?

Character selection is also kind of a weird thing in this, too. It doesn't seem like it matters who you take with you into missions, which... feels weird to me considering past Persona games. The elements have all been kinda smooshed down into less of a weakness thing, but just a special move that can hinder movement, do damage over time, or change enemy placement entirely, but which type of special you bring along doesn't seem to be as crucial as other Persona games. Each character has a slightly different attack, gun spread, and movement limit, but it wasn't anything drastic that I noticed apart from Haru (she is very slow but apparently hits like a truck) and possibly Morgana (his attack was very weak for me, but I'm not sure if that's because I didn't have him kitted out properly or that's intended).

I played the game almost entirely with Joker and Ann, while swapping between Erina and Ryuji for the last slot and I didn't run into any problems.

The last stretch of the game is... a strange one gameplay wise. Toshiro becomes a party member except... he's Different(tm). He doesn't get a skill tree, is a permanent fourth party member, and can initiate All-Out Attacks, but isn't a part of the triangle that forms it. He does have a gun, but it's in the form of a 0SP attack that Ernesto/Erina can use... that also happens to ignore walls entirely. And he also gets Almighty attacks, which kinda just do big number damage for way more SP.

It's hard to say if the game did a good job scaling the level difficulties to incorporate a fourth party member as staying on top of your persona fusing, weapons, and the skill tree can kind of make the game a breeze. I also played on the normal difficulty, so maybe in harder difficulties, Toshiro becomes more of a necessity than a party member that breaks the game.

My only big gripe with the game is just... the weirdness of the undo button. I don't know how it is in regular tactics games, but the undo in this game doesn't work on a "clear the last action this unit did" basis, but on a turn basis. If you happen to screw up on turn one, unit one, you have to back out COMPLETELY to the mission start screen, which is hella annoying especially if you're playing on the Switch because of the load times.

"But Pickles, what about the DLC? Surely you have just as many thoughts about it?"

Y'know?

I actually don't.

I liked Repaint Your Heart a lot. Again, it's less a story about the Royal Trio and more about Guernica, but it's closer to the traditional Persona 5 story format where they're changing someone's heart. This story also had much higher emotional... fidelity? I guess you could put it?

Guernica needed to remember her main inspirations for creating art - being abandoned and homeless and her big sister dying because of it and she embraces that anger against society into art that inspires hope in people less fortunate. While being groomed into a political pawn from basically birth and then, later in life, being thrown into your own mental hellscape sucks, in terms of emotional weight, Toshiro's story feels like a feather compared to Guernica's.

Also her design is just cool and the paint aesthetic is definitely more my speed.

In terms of Royal Trio content, I think this was the best case scenario we could expect from Atlus.

Emphasis on "from Atlus."

Yeah, we didn't get Black Mask Akechi, but there are MORE THAN ENOUGH moments where he lets the facade slip. His default spell is Megidola, but his skill tree lets him have both Light AND Dark spells. He'll cuss at you if you hit an enemy into him. I don't know what he's doing viscerally screaming half the time he summons Robin Hood.

Sumi. Is also there.

She is fine.

Guernica's connection to the thieves is also written in the same way as Toshiro is, in that it's a little shoehorned in and doesn't add to the story beyond that. After finding out that Luca is Guernica's sister that died, Sumi definitely feels motivated and inspired to help her out, but Akechi also being an abandoned child, scorned by society, and angry at the world because of it is never touched upon. This is probably for spoiler reasons, but... still.

Because this is a story that takes place during Sae's Palace in the main game, they all have to have amnesia about it in the end. Which, understandable, and at least no one in the trio had extensive character development but...

*clenches fist*

Man,

Having tackled this after the main game, I enjoyed the gameplay a lot! It's basically P5 Tactica but with Splatoon mixed in. When a unit is on a tile painted the opposite color for them, they can be instantly knocked down and combo'd on, which adds a whole extra layer of complexity to the game. I wish there were a few more levels to play, but the length of the DLC never overstays its welcome.

Hokay.

If you made it this far, congrats! You reached the end. And my tl;dr section.

I think that's just about it on what I cohesively have to say about P5 Tactica. This isn't a terrible game by any means, but I don't know if the audience it's intended for actually exists. It has a just okay story and just okay mechanics, but the DLC has a more than okay story and the core mechanics are given a fresh coat of paint (yeah, boo, I know) that makes the game more interesting. I would not go paying $80 USD to experience the DLC alone, though.

Thank you for reading my review if you made it all the way to the end! P5 stuff (well, mostly Akeshu) has been my muse these past few years and playing a game that was "just okay but why did they..." got into my brain real bad, so I wanted to write some stuff out.

I'll close this out with some bullet points of thoughts that I couldn't really cohesively fit into my review:

I really really liked how they got little costumes for the old timey Japan kingdom and I was hoping we'd get more of that and every kingdom was based on a new theme... but we only got three kingdoms and the last one before "Smithy's Forge from Super Mario RPG" was............ School.

SATANAEL'S BACK IN TIME FOR CHRISTMAS (BUT ONLY POST-GAME)

Erina also being Ernesto thing is mostly weird to me because she's still her own entity but also not???? The possible genderfluid connotations are cool though.

There's a quest where Haru asks Yusuke how to be fast. Yusuke tells her she has to "Become a Black Hole." I do not know what this means.

After the quest, Haru says that even though the axe slows her down, she's very partial to it as her father didn't like her chopping wood as a kid, but she'd sneak out and do it anyway. She later found out that her dad knew she was doing this, but decided not to scold her for it. She took this as a sign of kindness from her father and that's why the axe is so special to her. I do not know what this means as Haru's father was a horrible capitalist who basically tried to marry her off in pursuit of power.

The weapon designs in this game are generally kind of silly, but I appreciate that they exist in the game. There's a chompy gun with teeth that Joker gets and I really like it :)

God the Lyn tracks from the DLC FUCK

...what

Futaba says "sus" at one point in the end

#persona 5 tactica #p5t #Y'ALL ASKED FOR THE HOT TEA #THIS IS AS REASONABLY SCALDING I COULD MAKE IT #oh fug I almost forgot #thank you to all the friendos who looked through this for me before I posted it!!

[e2019]

okey well i didnt think it was gonna happen especially not so fast since i have NOOOO fugging money etc but i finessed it got some more subs which is very good considering i somehow lost the 2mg i had last night like i went to bed and woke up several times in the night and it was there then i remember one time touching it because i was like hey wait why is this here i should put it somewhere else and when i woke up for real it was not there... not sure if i moved it and forgot but who cares now.

the sub doctor was kinda mad at me i think lol he sighed really loudly and was like "please stoppppppp relapsing u know there's a fentanyl crisis going on you're gonna die!!!" and talked to me like i was some naughty 5yrs old child who needs to be put in the timeout corner. ummm yes sir i'm so sorry wont let it happen again capiche?

anyways i feel ok right now still a little bit sick but very manageable... not like yesterday when i only took 2mg it was like almost nothing... or i guess it was kind of like i was on day 2 of withdrawal but it felt more like day 1. which still kinda sucked but it was ok because i can work on day 1 but day 2 no fucking way jose.

i've been thinking a lot about what's the best way to do this and i think this is it... so as soon as u can tolerate the sub without going into pwd load the fuck up on it. like 8mg-16mg. then every 3+ days take half of your last dose until you're at 1mg or less, then jump off... the reason why is cuz u wanna get ~100% receptor occupancy asap obviously. then the half-life is 1-3 days. so if u don't wait an entire half life and/or you take more than 1/2 your previous dose, you'll be increasing ur effective dose.

i'm a little bit stupid but i think my math is correct here. you take 1 dose then after 1 half-life you're at 0.5 dose + 0.5 = 1. 1 more half-life you're at 0.5 again + 0.25 = 0.75. 1 more half-life is 0.375 + 0.125 = 0.5... etc etc. that should be real fucking easy. it wasn't so bad last time and my max dose was 4mg. so maybe tonight or tomorrow morning i will take 8mg and start tapering from there and it should be a frigging cake walk. after that depending on how i feel i might take like 2mg or less 1-2x a week for like a couple months but idk we'll see.

oh and yeah i'm not even gonna think about shooting them anymore cuz i don't wanna open up that can of worms that would be so fucked. it's really better if i stay convinced it will be a painful & disgusting death... iirc i had waited 12-24hr last time so pwd should have been out of the question anyways. right. and i had enough benzos to kinda knock myself out which was the only thing that kept me from going crazy. which i don't have any now so if that was to happen again well i'm weighing my options rn and none of them are desirable... slit my throat with a knife or toaster bath i suppose. running in front of traffic is not within the realm of possibility, and it takes at least a 3-story building for the fall to kill u i think. really unfortunate, we need some more effective/immediate/less painful suicide methods at our disposal at all times...

#update immediately after posting i found the sub from last night it was on the floor so mystery solved

[rosiehunterwolf]

oh take me back to the start

Prompts: Comfort and 3am

Word Count: 4,612

Characters: Jay and Cole

Timeline: After season 6

Trigger Warnings: Nightmares, Blood, Mild Gore, Panic Attack, PTSD

Summary: The past should be left in the past. Or, at least, that’s what Jay keeps telling himself. Nadakhan is gone. It’s not logical to still be afraid. But he is, and now everything that he left behind suddenly feels like it’s never going to be the same again.

Cole isn’t so convinced.

Read on FFN.net

Read on Ao3

Tumblr work under the cut

Jay couldn’t move.

Heavy shackles weighed down his feet, and his arms felt like they were made of concrete, even though they appeared to be completely normal otherwise.

What’s happening? Where am I?

Everything around him was dark, so, so dark. Powerful gusts of wind whooshed past, threatening to knock him over, and he tried to lift his hands to shield his face. They still felt so heavy, so wrong, but slowly, slowly, he was able to move them.

He glanced up, but there was no moon, no stars. The night was utterly black.

“Hello?” he called, his voice sounding odd and detached. “Is anyone there?”

The wind whipped away his words, and he gritted his teeth. How did I get here? I don’t remember leaving the Bounty.

“Jay!”

Jay’s head whipped up at the shrill cry. He would know that voice anywhere.

Nya.

No, Nya, no, Nya, no-

Jay tried to jerk towards the sound, but he still couldn’t move. The chains were still there, only curling around his ankles tighter each time he tried to yank away. “Nya! Nya, I’m coming, Nya!”

With a gasp, he suddenly broke free, almost falling to the ground from the sudden release of tension. Not wasting a second, he darted off towards Nya’s voice, stumbling blindly through the dark but desperate to get to her. The wind wrapped around him, pushing in on him and making it hard to breathe.

“Nya!” he screamed, stopping to look around. “Where are you?”

Suddenly, a small orange light appeared in the distance. Jay gasped and started running towards it. He had to go there. She was there, he could feel it.

As he got closer, things began to get lighter- he could make out shadows forming in the corners of his vision, reaching, curling towards him. He forced his gaze forward and ran faster.

He could see something now, two shadowy figures. Green tinted the corners of his vision, slowly spreading forward until his whole world was a shade of sickly lime. He shook his head, but it did nothing to help.

Suddenly, he was there, the figures mere feet from him. One was lying on the ground, a bloodcurdling scream coming from her mouth.

“Nya!” he yelped, but suddenly the other figure was in front of him. A tall, orange-skinned man stood in front of him, long dark hair unfurling from his topknot, a malicious sneer on his face, a dark amber mist curling where his legs should’ve been.

Jay’s heart stopped.

Nadakhan.

Jay screamed, stumbling backward, and the djinn laughed, turning back towards Nya. Grabbing her hair, he roughly yanked her towards him.

“Jay!” Nya shrieked. Jay lurched towards them, but there was suddenly a stabbing pain in his left eye and he stumbled to the ground, watching helplessly as Nadakhan raised the Djinn Blade over her head.

“Leave her alone!” Jay cried, but his voice was dry and cracked. Suddenly, the blade was plunging towards her. Jay didn’t know if his scream or Nya’s was louder as the weapon cut through her chest, and suddenly blood was spewing everywhere, seeping across her dress, into his clothes, dripping through his fingers-

Jay screamed, lurching forward and grabbing her hand. He didn’t know where Nadakhan had gone- the djinn had seemed to vanish into thin air- but he didn’t care. His mind was only on Nya.

A gaping wound stretched across her chest, her delicate, soft flesh torn and soaked in red. He screamed again, pressing his hands over it, but only more blood came, and more, and more-

His hands were dripping red, and he pulled back, sobbing. It was his fault; it was all his fault; he had done this-

“Jay,” Nya whispered hoarsely, and he stopped immediately, bending close to hear her.

“Why… why would you do this… to me… to us… how could you let this happen? How could… how could you fail the one person who always believed in you?”

“I’m so sorry, Nya,” he wailed. “I let you down, because of me- because of me, you’re-”

Nya coughed, blood gurgling at her lips, and suddenly the oozing blood was shifting from red to a bright, nauseating green.

Jay jerked back. Tiger Widow venom.

Oh no, oh no, it was all over him, he was going to die, just like Nya.

He stood up sharply, but his legs were shaky, and suddenly he was falling, falling into nothingness, Nya’s rasping breaths echoing into his ears, each one further and further apart until there was nothing.

---

Jay jerked upright in his bed, stuffing his blanket in his mouth so fiercely he almost choked, muffling his screams as he buried his face in his legs, gulping back sobs and begging himself to be quiet, before he woke the others.

One, two, three, four-

It wasn’t working. Jay’s brain felt like it was going to explode. Every time he closed his eyes, all he could see was Nya, soaked in blood, her lifeless eyes staring up at him, and it was all his fault-

Jay practically launched himself from the bed, just barely managing to avoid falling down the ladder as he stumbled out the door of their shared bedroom.

He just barely made it to the bathroom in time, lurching over to the toilet and throwing up. Woozy, he pulled back, panting, and curled into a ball, rocking himself gently.

It was fine; it was fine; it was just a dream. Nadakhan wasn’t here anymore- he hadn’t- Jay had erased the timeline, that hadn’t even happened anymore-

But the memories were still there. It had happened to him; it was still very real to him, why couldn’t he have forgotten everything like the others?

He was trembling now, trembling hard, why were his fingers red, Nya’s blood was still on his hands, why was that still there, it had just been a dream-

Hallucinating. He was hallucinating, the blood wasn’t there. That… that wasn’t good. He had never had an attack this bad before.

He knew he should go get Nya. Ever since everything had happened with Nadakhan, she had been the only other one to remember, the only other one he could talk to, who knew what he was feeling and could comfort him on the hard nights.

But he had come to her late almost every night for the last couple of weeks since he had defeated Nadakhan. He knew Nya was struggling, too- heck, she had it worse; she had been the one who was actually dying, and the dark circles under her eyes hadn’t gone unnoticed by Jay. He knew she had been sleeping horribly. She deserved one night without him pestering her.

He hugged himself tighter, trying to imagine his own hands as Nya’s, trying to slow his breathing.

Just stop, just stop, just stop, just work- Jay, you idiot, you can’t do anything right, you’re so pathetic, this is all your fault-

“Jay?”

A voice cut through his panic, and he jerked his head up, hitting it against the bathroom cabinet and groaning.

A gentle hand on his arm. “C’mon, let’s get you outta here.”

No. Jay’s brain plunged into protest, tugging away from the unfamiliar contact. No, no, no- “Get away from me!”

The blood was back now, (had it ever really gone?), but it wasn’t Nya’s, it was his, his wrists slit and blood streaming out, concealing the dark, purpling bruises. Nadakhan had beat him again, and now his eye was hurting again, why did it hurt so bad, why couldn’t he see-

“Jay! Jay, breathe, it’s just me. You’re okay. You’re safe. Everyone’s safe. It’s going to be okay.”

His brain faintly registered Cole, and as he reached for his hand, it went right through it. Cole grimaced, gritting his teeth, and Jay tried again. This time, his hand felt warm and firm. Cole pulled him to his feet, and Jay leaned against him, trying to focus on his solid presence, to steady himself.

“Did you skip your meds again, Jay?” Cole asked, reaching into the medicine cabinet and pulling a few bottles out.

Jay blinked, trying to clear the fug from his brain. “I… what? I don’t…”

“Take a deep breath, Jay. Jay- Jay, look at me.”

Jay forced himself to meet his gaze. Cole’s deep brown eyes were soft, comforting, strong. Jay felt himself exhale, slow and long, the first proper breath in minutes. It felt good.

“No,” he murmured, “I didn’t take them. I forgot.”

“Okay, I’ll get them for you on the way there. Right now, you need to get out.”

Jay blinked, letting Cole lead him out of the bathroom. His mind still felt slow. “On the way where?”

“I dunno. But we’re just going out, taking a little car ride. The fresh air will help you.”

“O-okay,” Jay murmured, and suddenly they were outside, cool air gracing his too-warm skin. He let out a shaky breath. Cole was right, already he was feeling a little better.

The Bounty had been stationed near one of their smaller bases that night, but luckily this one housed one of the few normal vehicles they owned- riding around on the Earth Driller or Cole’s elemental dragon didn’t seem like the best option if they wanted to avoid attention.

The two of them climbed into the car, Cole in the driver’s side and Jay in the passenger’s. Cole distributed Jay some of his pills, which he took, and they set off.

Jay leaned his face against the window, the cool glass feeling good on his skin. Cole had the windows cracked too, so a fresh breeze filled the car. He watched the dark shapes flick past the window, mostly trees, but the occasional house as well, which got more frequent as they neared the city. He caught a flash of Nya’s lifeless body in the reflection of the window, and he bit his lip, deciding to count the houses as a distraction.

“So,” Cole said after a while, breaking the long silence. “What do you want to eat?”

Jay turned away from the window, blinking at him. “What?”

“A little food in my stomach always helps me when I’ve had a… rough night.”

Despite himself, Jay felt a mischievous grin spread across his lips. “You’re always thinking about food.”

Cole grunted, taking a hand off the steering wheel to shove him gently in the shoulder. “Shut up.”

After a moment, Jay asked, “Can we go to that little shack on the corner of the city that sells those really good hand-spun milkshakes?”

“I don’t think they’re open right now, bud.”

“Oh.” There was silence, then, “What time is it?”

Cole pressed his lips together. “3 am.”

Jay was quiet. It’s that late? Ugh, I am such a horrible friend. Why would I bother him with all my issues at this time of night? He should be in bed sleeping, like everyone else.

“What about McDonald’s?” Cole’s suggestion interrupted his thoughts. “They’re open all night.”

Jay scoffed. “McDonald’s? The milkshakes there are laughable at best.”

“Yeah, but at this time of night they’re really our only option.”

He sighed. “McDonald’s it is, then.”

Less than ten minutes later, they were pulling into the parking lot, the big ‘M’ sign, which was glowing a harsh yellow color, flickering slightly, giving off an almost eerie vibe. At this time of night, the parking lot was barren except for two cars, likely owned by the employees, which didn’t exactly help that feeling.

“You comin’?” Cole asked, and Jay blinked, realizing Cole was already out of the car, holding open the door for him. Cole extended a hand out and helped him up- Jay was still a little woozy from the meds- and they headed inside.

The little bell that rang as they pushed open the door sounded louder than usual in the emptiness of the building. The only person in sight was an exhausted-looking cashier who glanced up at them with a skeptical expression. Her gaze lingered a little longer on Cole’s ghostly form, but either she recognized him or was too tired to care, because she didn’t question them.

“Welcome to McDonald’s, how may I help you,” she mumbled in the driest, most monotone voice Jay had ever heard.

They ordered, waited for their food, then took a seat near the corner. Jay nibbled on a couple of fries. Cole was trying to look busy with some chicken nuggets, but Jay could feel the earth ninja’s gaze on him. He swallowed, the food suddenly seeming to stick in his throat.

“Man, I haven’t eaten these things in ages,” Cole said suddenly, glancing down at his nuggets. “I must’ve been like, nine, the last time I got a Happy Meal.”

Jay bristled. “I didn’t order a Happy Meal! This is just a regular fries and nuggets meal.”

“But it’s the exact same thing that’s in the Happy Meal, minus the toy. They just don’t call it that because it’s embarrassing if you’re not a little kid. It’s basically just a big boy Happy Meal. Hey, look at that, Jay, you graduated. We should celebrate. Maybe with this big kid Happy Meal?”

“I’ll have you know I haven’t ordered a Happy Meal since I was ten.”

Cole crossed his arms, gesturing up with his fingers.

“Okay, so maybe twelve. But no later than that! Stop making assumptions about me!”

Cole snorted. “Whatever makes you happy, dude.”

“Hey, before you continue to joke about my weird habits, can we discuss the fact that you’re a ghost and you still eat McDonald’s?”

“Hey, just because I don’t need food doesn’t mean it doesn’t taste good. And I’m also doing it as moral support for you.”

“Har har.”

“Jay, I’m serious!” Cole’s teasing expression suddenly grew somber. “What happened to you back there? I haven’t seen you like that since- well, ever. You really scared me, Jay.”

Jay ducked his head. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, that just makes this worse! I’m not reprimanding you for anything, I’m just worried and want to help you. I’m your best friend, Jay. You can tell me anything.”

Jay wrung his hands together. “I’m not so sure I can, Cole.” His friend opened his mouth to protest, but Jay held up his hand, stopping him. “Oh, I know you want me to. But it’s not that simple.” Softer, he added, “It’s more complicated than you will ever know.”

“Maybe, but sometimes sharing your burdens with someone helps a lot more than you think it will.”

Jay bit his lip. He couldn’t tell Cole about Nadakhan. He couldn’t. Part of him wanted to, but… he didn’t want to relive those memories again. He wanted to leave them as far in the past as they could possibly get.

Besides, there was no way he could know. His memories of the event, like everyone else’s, had been stripped when Jay had made his last wish. Jay could recount the story to him, but it would always be just that- a story. He didn’t doubt that Cole would believe him, but it wouldn’t be the same. Cole still wouldn’t have actually experienced Nadakhan- felt the creeping dread when the accursed djinn caught you alone, the aching in his bones from the long hours aboard the Misfortune’s Keep, or the numbing horror of watching Nya die in his arms.

But Cole was right. This time had been bad. And even though Nya was the only one who truly understood, it wasn’t fair to burden her with all that. He needed help, and Cole was offering it.

“I had a nightmare,” he sighed.

“Again?” Cole frowned, concern flashing in his eyes. “That seems to be happening a lot recently.”

“You knew it happened before?”

“I’m a ghost, not exactly a heavy sleeper. There’s a reason I found you tonight, y’know. I didn’t just decide to wander into the bathroom in the middle of the night because I felt like it.”

“Oh. You didn’t… you didn’t say anything? You didn’t tell the others?”

Cole shook his head. “I thought it wasn’t a big deal. I mean, nightmares aren’t exactly a rare occurrence with our group, and it wasn’t exactly that long ago since Morro. Kai was having nightmares for months afterwards, and if I’m being honest, I think he still is. I myself have been having some… interesting dreams. It didn’t seem that improbable for you to be having them, too. But this…” Cole’s eyes flashed. “I hardly recognized you, Jay. I know you said you didn’t take your meds, but that was no ordinary nightmare.”

“No,” Jay shifted. “I just… I was alone,” he blurted. “It was so dark, and none of you guys were there, and Nya- Nya was…” He stopped, choking on a sob. His heart was racing. “It was all my fault-”

“Hey,” Cole murmured, getting up and sliding in behind him, wrapping a hand around his shoulders. “We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. I’m sorry for bringing it up.”

“It’s fine.” Jay wiped at his eyes. “I’ve already caused you so much trouble, bringing you out all this way so early in the morning-”

“Hey, I won’t have any of that.” Cole turned Jay’s shoulder so that they were looking each other in the eyes. “I’m your best friend, Jay. That’s what I’m here for. You’ve always been there for me, no matter how inconvenient. I’m just returning the favor.”

But I lied to you. I let my own selfish desires get in the way of everyone’s safety, and I was a disloyal friend. Jay bit back the response. Cole didn’t know about any of that. In his mind, it had never happened.

But for Jay, it had, and he wasn’t about to forget it.

He wasn’t good enough for Cole.

“Ugh, what are these, they’re all crispy.”

It took Jay a moment to register that Cole had spoken, and he swiveled his head towards his friend. “What?”

“Your fries.” Cole held up a fry. “They’re overcooked.”

“That’s the best way to have them,” Jay insisted, grabbing one and crunching it loudly between his teeth. “What, you like yours all soft and mushy?”

“They’re not mushy, they’re rich and fluffy. You’re just eating burnt potato skin.”

“The crunch is part of the experience! It gives them the extra little flair they need.”

“If you want crunchy, why don’t you get chips instead?”

“Are you kidding? This is completely different!”

“Okay, then what about these?” Cole leaned forward, tilting up the carton so that the last handful of fries slid out onto the napkin. They were a dark, brownish-black color, with only hints of gold peeking through. “Tell me how delicious those are.”

Jay winced. “Okay, well, there’s a fine line between a good, crispy fry and a burnt one. What did they do, set them on fire?”

Cole shook his head, grinning. “Did you see how dead-on-her-feet that cashier looked? It wouldn’t surprise me if the kitchen staff looked similar.”

Jay snorted. “I hope not, or this place will be burnt down before the end of the week.”

“We should’ve gone deeper into the city. The night shift workers there would’ve been more capable.”

“We should get a refund on these.”

“Well, you’ll be the one asking.”

“Why?”

“I’m a ghost, moron- did you see the way she looked at me earlier?”

“Yeah, well, we’re also famous ninja. How do you know that wasn’t why she was staring at you?”

“Trust me, it’s always the ghost thing. It’s way more noticeable. Besides, they didn’t look at you, and you’re just as much one of the ninja as I am.”

Jay shrugged, glancing down at himself- he was wearing his worn blue pajamas with the lightning bolts on them, with only an old sweatshirt pulled over his shoulders. He could feel how messy his auburn curls were and knew that the dark circles he had seen under his eyes every time he looked in the mirror over the last few days hadn’t gone away. “I don’t exactly look like myself.”

Cole’s smile faltered slightly, and he squeezed his shoulder tighter. “Jay-”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Pushing away from Cole, he stood up. “Can we go home now?”

Cole gazed at him sadly. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not mad, I’m just tired. I don’t want to be here anymore. Besides,” he added in a whisper, “we’re starting to get some weird looks from the staff.”

Cole subtly glanced over his shoulder, smirking as he caught sight of the cashier and another staff member who had come out front, murmuring to each other as they stared at Cole and Jay.

“Okay,” Cole breathed, “Let’s go. I suppose we’ve been here a while, anyway.”

The car ride back was quiet, with no other cars on the road to be seen. Even with the slight uneasiness between him and Cole, Jay was feeling a lot better than he had before they had left the Bounty. He still swore he could catch glimpses of red when he glanced down at his hands, but at least he had been able to rid the image of Nya’s lifeless eyes from his mind.

Cole always knew what to do to make things better.

Suddenly, his friend pulled over into a small, empty parking lot. Jay glanced at him questioningly. They were nowhere near the Bounty. “What are you doing?”

“Wait here.” Cole got out of the car and darted towards the small building that the parking lot belonged to. Upon a closer look, Jay realized it was the milkshake shack he had been asking Cole about earlier. A few minutes later, Cole emerged again, jogging towards the car with two cups in hand.

Jay cocked his head at him. “I thought you said they would be closed.”

“They are. But I was able to negotiate.” The earth ninja shot him a wink, and Jay didn’t even want to begin to think about what that meant.

“Did you get-”

Cole shoved a cup into his hands. “Strawberry, yeah. You psychopath.”

“It’s the best kind!”

Cole scoffed, holding up his drink. “Beats chocolate? Yeah, I don’t think so.”

Jay laughed- a real, genuine laugh. It felt good. He couldn’t remember the last time he had done that- probably not since before Nadakhan.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Cole smiling. Jay realized that this had been part of his plan, to get them bickering again so that Jay would be distracted from his nightmare. Deep down, he knew Cole wanted him to talk about it, but when he had decided against that, Cole had accepted it and adapted accordingly.

As they pulled out of the parking lot, Jay felt like he wanted to cry. What did I do to deserve a friend like Cole?

Jay’s life may have had its struggles, but one thing he had gotten really lucky in was the friend department.

The rest of the car ride was much less quiet, instead filled with teasing banter between him and Cole, and Jay felt better than he had in weeks.

By the time they made it back to the Bounty, it was a little past five in the morning. Jay rubbed at his eyes. He was tired, but he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to go back to sleep. Cole’s distractions had helped a lot, and he was scared of closing his eyes again and finding the memories flooding back.

Cole seemed to pick up on his train of thought. “Are you gonna be okay? Do you want to try going back to bed, or do you want to do something else?”

Jay eyed him uneasily. “But you-”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. I’ll have all the time in the world to sleep later. This is about you. Wanna play Fist to Face?”

Jay shook his head. “I don’t have the energy for video games right now. Should I try going to sleep?”

“If you’re comfortable with it, yeah.” Cole shot him a sympathetic glance. “You look exhausted.”

“Yeah, okay.” Jay fiddled with his thumbs. “I’m scared to sleep, though.”

Cole smiled sadly at him. “Let me make you some hot chocolate, and then I’ll stay with you for tonight. Would that help?”

“Cole, you don’t have to do this.”

“No, but I want to. That’s what friends are for, sparky. You’d do the same for me in a heartbeat.”

“Thanks, Cole.”

A shuffling of footsteps interrupted them. “You guys okay?”

Jay turned, sucking in his breath.

She was here. She was safe and sound and alive. Although she looked drowsy and was sporting similar eye bags as Jay, there was the familiar spark in her eye and the gracefulness of her movements that was such a stark contrast to the limp body he had seen in his dream that he wanted to cry.

Cole started. “Nya! Sorry, did we wake you?”

She shook her head. “I was already awake. Couldn’t sleep. I didn’t know you left.”

“We just took a little outing,” Cole said. “We couldn’t get to sleep, either.”

Nya’s gaze melted as it turned on Jay. Her eyes showed everything words couldn’t- all the pain, the exhaustion, the sympathy, and the understanding. It was all a little too much for Jay, and suddenly, he was launching himself into her arms. She returned his embrace just as fiercely, clenching and unclenching the fabric of his shirt in her fists.

“I’ll be back,” Cole murmured, leaving them alone.

For a while, they just stood there, holding each other. Jay took a deep breath, inhaling the faint scent of cinnamon and grease that always seemed to linger in her clothes.

“How bad was it this time?”

Jay was silent for a moment. “Bad. Really bad. But Cole helped me. I’m better now.”

“Did you tell him? About… what happened?”

“No, but he knows something’s up. He’s not prying, but I think he’s getting pretty worried about me.”

“I’m getting worried about you, too. You can always come and talk to me, y’know.”

“I didn’t want to wake you up.”

“I wouldn’t have minded.” She reached her hand up to his face and tucked his hair behind his ear. Jay bit his lip as tears started streaming silently down his face. Nya’s deep brown eyes softened, and she leaned forward on her toes, pressing her lips against his. They leaned together, and Jay felt his tears mingling with hers.

Jay didn’t know how long they stood there, but eventually they were interrupted by the sound of someone clearing their throat. Jay pulled back from Nya, turning to see Cole, two mugs of hot chocolate in hand. His cheeks were flushed at having caught them kissing, but his expression quickly faded to a frown when he caught sight of their tear-stained cheeks.

“Guys, what’s going on? Is there something you two aren’t telling me?”

Jay and Nya exchanged a glance.

“Cole…” Nya walked up to him and took the mug from his hand, placing her other hand over his. “Jay and I are still trying to work some things out right now. I promise you’ll be the first one we tell, when we’re ready. But until then, you have to be patient with us.”

Jay took the other mug from him, taking a long sip from it, and Cole watched him carefully. “Okay, I can do that. I just want to help you, though. Are you sure you’re okay?”

Jay and Nya looked at each other. Nya gave him a small smile, and they intertwined their fingers.

“We will be.”

#ninjago #ninbingo #my fic #rosie writes #ninjago jay #ninjago cole #ninjago nya #yet another case of the ninja not having appropriate reactions to their trauma so rosie ✨angstifies✨ it #skybound was DARK okay? #ofc jay's going to freak out a little bit #luckily he's got cole to help #jay's nightmare does get pretty intense tho... #tw: nightmares #tw: blood #tw: mild gore #thanks for reading! #reblogs and comments greatly appreciated!

[uzumakiusagi26]

Hi @macrauchenia! Here is your gift for @tog-secret-santa! Hope you like it!

A day from a leader's life!

Summary: Rak is a great leader and has many responsibilities. It's not always easy to take care of them, but is nothing he can't he handle.

Warning: This story take place in the Season 3 of the webtoon so it contains some spoilers.

Rak Wraithraiser is the great leader of the most known team from the Tower. Rak knows that, as a big and fantastic leader like him, he has a lot of important things to do every day. It's hard, but he is strong and he wants to get stronger.

And because he has so many things to do he made a list:

1.Go to sleep early so you can get stronger

2.Wake up early so you can get stronger

3.Drink water so you can get stronger

4.Eat so you can get stronger

5.Train so you can get stronger

6.Get stronger so you can be stronger and so you can punch blue turtle when he makes fun of you

These are his normal duties every day. Simple, but helpful.

But as a great leader, he has more duties than the normal ones. Because a leader has to make sure his teammates are in a good condition.

Sounds easy? Well..most of it is easy.

He has good teammates. The warrior turtle and tracksuit turtle are the most responsible turtles from his team. They know the importance of a good schedule and they take care of their health as everyone should do. The red turtle and useless turtle don't disturb Rak, because even if they don't do much, they eat and drink as much as not to make Rak worry for their health. The lizard and the ghost eyeball turtle are making his life hard sometimes but is nothing he can't deal with. Even the new turtles that joined their team, like the big-eyed turtle, are having normal schedules so Rak doesn't have to worry about them.

But in every team exist the black sheep. In Rak's team, these black sheep are a certain blue turtle and black turtle. Rak is 100% sure that two turtles never heard about a good schedule before or about taking care of their health. Oh, no! Because these two are the most self-sacrificing,  STUPID turtles Rak ever seen.

Every day, he has to take care of them to not push themself too much and every day Rak feels he lose his sanity a little bit more.

But as a responsible person, he made a list of how to take care of the two idiots too.

First, he has to wake both of them up. This is the easiest part because the three of them go to sleep together, so he knows his turtles slept enough to have the energy for the day. But sometimes, they like to fuck his brain cells and that morning was one of these special times in which Rak knew his sanity will deteriorate.

When Rak woke up, no one was in the room. He sighed knowing what is going to happen and went down to the kitchen.

Exactly as he expected, the blue turtle was typing on his light-sparkling cube with a mug in his hand and the black turtle was arranging on the table the plates with food.

"Black turtle, you made the breakfast for everyone...again?"

"...yes"

"From when are you awake?"

"Uhm...5 minutes?"

"YOU CAN'T MAKE BREAKFAST FOR EVERYONE IN 5 MINUTES!"

Rak felt a vein was going to explode. He approached by Khun and looked straight in his eyes.

"And you, blue turtle? When did you wake up?"

"10 minutes ago and I made myself some coffee! Now leave me alone, stupid gator.

Rak looked around and spotted on table three other empty mugs in which he was sure there was coffee. Rak felt his blood boiling.

"That's your fourth coffee, blue turtle!" Rak said and Khun twitched. Rak knew he caught Khun with the lie. He wanted to punch both of them, but he refrained.

"....I can drink 4 coffees in 10 minutes!"

"THAT'S WORSE!"

Rak grabbed with his claws the two boys and threw them back in the bedroom, ignoring their complaints.

"Each turtle needs to sleep for 8 hours! Go back to sleep! I'll wake you in an hour!" He heard the two groan, but Rak knew they were going to do what Rak told them. Even if they do stupid things like this, Rak can trust his turtles.

"Stupid turtles, ruining my schedule!" Rak murmured, going back in the kitchen to make sure his other teammates turtles are taking care of themself.

The second thing he has to do is to make sure the two turtles eat properly. And this is where the chaos starts.

Black turtle doesn't have a big problem with eating adequately. He learned in FUG the importance of three meals in a day and 2-3 snacks. The black turtle's biggest problem is that he forgets to drink water. But this problem is always quickly resolved by Rak throwing a bottle of water in the black turtles' head and says: "Drink it!".

Instead, the blue turtle is eating his days! If Rak can make that idiot have three meals a day he can consider it a big victory.

"BLUE TURTLE THAT'S YOUR FIFTH COFFEE AND YOU HAVEN'T EATEN ANYTHING YET!"

"I am not hungry! I'll eat later."

"THEN STOP DRINK COFFE!"

"I need coffee to function!"

"EAT SOMETHING AND DRINK WATER!"

"NO!"

Rak feels his blood boiling. If this is how he wants to play, then let's have fun.

"Gator what are doing? PUT ME DOWN!"

"Blue turtle refuses to eat, then I have to make him do it."

"I already have told you I am not hungry...mhmp!" Khun couldn't finish his sentence, because Rak shoved a spoon with food. (because the others can't cook, all the food was prepared by Bam, so no one was poisoned!)

"If the blue turtle doesn't want to eat alone, I have to force him! You can try to escape, but nor you nor I will leave this place until the plate is empty. Oh, I almost forgot about the water."

"Gator..."

"More you complain more we will stay here!"

Khun shut up and ate.

The third thing Rak has to do is to make sure his turtles are training in a proper way. And by a proper way, he means he has to make sure these stupid turtles don't overwork themself.

At this part, the blue turtle is more reasonable, because even with his firefish, his stamina is not the best. Khun's problem is when he is working on his lighthouse too much, but Rak knows how to handle this. All he has to do is throw himself on the lighthouse and Khun will stop, because he knows Rak will do that again if he continues his work. On the other place, the black turtle... likes to eat Rak's brain cells.

"Black turtle, the training finished! Why are you still here?"

"Huh? Oh, uhm...I wanted to practice a bit more, so I remained after you all left."

"Wait...you were here all this time?"

"...maybe."

"THE TRAINING FINISHED 4 HOURS AGO!"

"Uhm...yeah, but I really need to practice this attack more so I can b able to use it in the next battle..."

"I DO NOT CARE! IF I CAN FORCE BLUE TURTLE TO EAT, I CAN FORCE BLACK TURTLE TO STOP TRAINING TOO!"

Rak took Bam and put him over his own shoulder and left the training room. Bam said nothing, knowing the fact that even the smallest sound will make Rak even angrier.

The fourth thing Rak has to do is to make sure his turtles go to sleep at a decent hour. This is both the duty Rak detest the most and the one that makes Rak's life a living hell. Why? Because those two can go 3 days without sleeping if Rak wouldn't be there. But even if it is hard, Rak has a perfect plan.

The first step is to find the two turtles. This is the easiest part because he knows exactly where they can be. If they are not in the kitchen or their room then...

Bam is, again, in the training room.

"Black turtle?"

Bam looked at his friend a little scared, knowing Rak is going to scream at him.

"Time to sleep."

"It's just 11 pm! I am not tired so I'll stay..."

"I DIDN'T ASK IF YOU ARE TIRED OR NOT! I SAID IT'S TIME TO SLEEP, I DIDN'T ASK IF 'YOU WANT TO GO TO SLEEP'!" Rak grabbed Bam by his waist with his claw and took him up going to get the blue turtle. Bam said nothing more.

Khun could be in just one place...his office.

"Blue turtle, time to sleep!"

"You don't know to knock at the door? And what are doing with Bam?"

"The same thing I am going to do with you too...put you to sleep."

"What? You are not my mother. I can go to sleep when I want!"

"You understood wrong, just like the black, turtle so I will explain again: I DIDN'T ASK IF YOU WANT OR NOT TO GO TO SLEEP!"

Rak took Khun in the same way he took Bam and went to their room, throwing the two boys in their beds.

"Ugh...gator! I have plans and strategies for the war to do! I don't have time to play with you!"

"Khun..calm down a bit, please. I don't Rak is playing."

"Black turtle is right, blue turtle! Now go to sleep!"

Here comes the second step begins: Make these two sleep.

"I said sleep!"

"We can't fall asleep in 5 minutes, gator!"

"IT PASSED AN HOUR ALREADY!"

"Sorry, Rak...me and Khun aren't used to go to sleep this early!"

"Yeah...I mostly go to sleep at 4 am."

"Same or an hour earlier."

"THIS IS NOT A PROPERLY, GOOD AND RESPONSIBLE BEHAVIOR! You two sleep or I will apply force and I am sure none of us want this scenario to happen, but if I have to I will."

Another hour passed and finally, to Rak's happiness, his turtles fell asleep. Rak sighed and took two blankets and covered Khun and Bam. He sat down on the floor, looking at them, his eyes softened at the sight of the two sleeping boys.

Rak finished all his duties so, he can finally relax. He kissed the two boy's foreheads and stayed in the silence of the night, the only noise that could be heard was their heartbeats.

As he always does, Rak stays and looks at Khun and Bam, and remembered everything they went through. He remembered how many times he almost lost them, how they thought Bam was dead for 7 years, how Khun became cold and closed his feelings in him. How Bam was hurt by Rachel again. How he almost lost Khun because of Rachel and how for two years he was in a coma. He almost lost the blue turtle again after they woke him up. His turtles are always in danger and Rak...and Rak is afraid that he will lose them.

Tears were falling from Rak's red eyes because just when he is alone with the night he can give free rein to the emotions he hid in his big heart because behind his mask of a strong leader, Rak was a good friend who cares about his two precious turtles.

And...as in every night, he put his claws on the two sleeping boys' hearts, wanting to make sure these two are still there with him. He was watching at them and said:

"God Turtle...if you really exist, please listen to my prayer. I will make sure these two will eat and drink water. I will make sure they won't overwork themself and I will make sure they will sleep 8 hours. I will make sure they are not hurt. I will take care of their health. I will even make these two idiots realize they are in love with each other. I will get stronger so I can protect them. I will fight for their safety.  I will do all of these things so please God Turtle...please...if you really are there...if you really exist...please...I'll do everything I need to do to take care of them so please...don't take blue turtle and black turtle away from me again."

#tower of god secret santa #dec 21 #fanfic #fanfiction

[towerofgodscreamblogwink]

me reading too many chapters at once so we got catboy, evankhell & the twink, people laying flat, carl, worms on string, shoes with drip, siu continues to be horny for khun and he even drawn him small fang in one panel i can’t

me: tries to take tog seriously

siu:

KARAKAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

i mean kark

i mean carl

his shoes got style

did karaka just wowed

i was gonna say hey bam looks like a snack but mayhaps it is not the best timing 

e v a n k h e l l 

& t w i n k 

i should do a breathy khun compilation one day, but also, rip khun

EE

and now let the imagination fill the rest

SMH ALMOST FORGOT TO ADD THIS

o k a y  s i u  lets pretend you’re NOT horny

*nom*

bam: oops karaka i’ve ate the reader

khun: 

khun: hi. this is me.

khun: you’re probably wondering how did i end up in such fucked up situation.

siu: man i wonder how much of a femboy i can make khun to be

also he even added the small fang i 

w o w 

khun: who khun me no no im no khun, seniorita, nono

man

how to not love khun

just my boy being happy

also big fights were happening so i wasn’t commenting much, and i’ll b prolly commenting less and less the more plot kicks in

when he’s a villian but a good father

“ah shit he transformed into fairy.”

reminds me of that one meme.. that i don’t remember well enough to quote

ooooooooooooooooooooh

WOAH???

oi i didn’t think rachel team was actually targeting him

khun calls michael lunatic tho

so are they *not* working with rachel? or for rachel? i mean i know they’re with fug now apperantly but

might need to reread

._. i was right at this panel when vocaloid from a song went “aaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaAAAH”

WHAT ARE THOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSE

he lowkey looks like he’s dancin

it’s just a nice colour palette

... i thought these were worm strings

c-cat.

i love cats.

god.

i love cats

they fluff

uwu

i love nuzzling my head into cats fur

why all tog characters just lay down so awkwardly -

AWBHDGFDFGBDFGN

this hit feels

o-oh... yes i would like to see some cats, thank you... 

*sobs* look at this fluffball ....

no offence do you know how hard is to maintain such long thick hair

#tower of god #tog #catboy #khun aguero agnes #bam #idk #cats #worm on strings #nesreads

[khunfounded]

Penne alla Vodka

[My first Ehwaryun fic! It’s a little not sfw (they make out) but basically it’s just my gals cookin up some romance]

Ehwa was furiously reading through the recipe Viole had given her to see what had gone wrong with her stew to have it looking so grey when there was a knock on the door. She shoved the paper onto the counter and stormed over to the door, throwing it open.

“What is i-? Oh, It’s you”.

Standing at the door was Hwaryun, piercing crimson eye crinkled up in amusement. She wore a deep grey sweater dress and black tights that on anyone else would be at most comfy, but on her was criminally unfair. Ehwa really couldn’t stand these FUG guys, walking around like they owned the place and looking better than you doing it.

“Yes, I suppose it is,” Hwaryun smirked, folding her arms together leisurely, like she had all the time in the world.

Ehwa put her hands on her hips and tapped her foot, “What are you doing here? Can’t you tell Viole’s out with your,” she gestured around her head, “Guide sense stuff?”

Hwaryun chuckled and Ehwa felt a shiver run down her spine. FUG people sure were creepy like that. Yes, that was it. Ehwa was creeped out, nothing else.

“Maybe my ‘Guide sense stuff' led me to exactly where I needed to be”.

“Well that’s not purposefully vague at all,” Ehwa said sarcastically, but her words were overtaken by the beeping of the oven.

“Oh shit! I totally forgot,” She said, rushing over and pulling out rolls that could politely be deemed as being ‘incinerated’. She growled angrily and slammed the plate down onto the counter, sending the rolls that weren’t stuck down flying.

Fuck. Why was this so hard? She was supposed to be a shining beacon of her family but she couldn’t even fucking cook right, let alone control her own powers. She had tried taking over cooking duties from Viole again, to prove herself, but she just kept failing time and time again. It had gotten to the point where some of the others would go and get take-out while she was still cooking.

Ehwa blinked back tears of frustration as she gripped the edge of the counter, looking around at the disaster area she’d turned the kitchen into. Behind her, there was a thoughtful hum.

“Yes, I can see that I’m exactly where I need to be,” Ehwa turned around and came almost nose to nose with Hwaryun, who was graciously not wrinkling up her nose at the burnt smell of the kitchen. They were so close, Ehwa could smell whatever citrus perfume Hwaryun had put on and her beautiful crimson eye took up most of Ehwa’s vision. She was overwhelming all of Ehwa’s senses, taking up all of her thoughts. 

Ehwa backed up abruptly, which meant backing herself into the counter, face burning, “Wh-what do you mean?”

“It seems like you’re still just a girl who can’t even cook,” Hwaryun said, a teasing glimmer in her eye.

“Hey!” Ehwa protested, despite how right she was. She felt like she was exactly where she had been when she had first discovered what her family did to the Zygaenas. She huffed at that thought, crossing her arms.

“But,” Hwaryun said, “I think I can help you with that”.

Ehwa’s arms fell down in her confusion, “What do you mean by that?”

“I know how to cook”.

Ehwa’s mouth went agape as she thought through the implications of that sentence, “You think I’m gonna let a FUG criminal cook for me?!”

Hwaryun took a step closer, until they were back in the same space again, “I think you should let your friend’s Guide guide you through how to cook something edible”.

There were so many things wrong with that sentence. First of all, Viole was not her friend. Second of all, she could cook edible food alright? She’d only ever set a sandwich on fire once and that wasn’t even her fault. And thirdly-

“You want to teach me how to cook?”

“I think someone needs to before you set the whole building on fire”.

Which, fair.

“And that someone has to be you?” Ehwa asked.

Hwaryun made a point of looking around the living area, “Do you see anyone else here?”

Ehwa hated that she was boxed in by the other’s logic. It would be nice for her cooking to not be a complete failure, and Viole had tried to teach her before to no avail, so maybe this could possibly be a viable option.

She huffed, sighed, and said, “Fine, teach me how to cook”.

“Teach me how to cook---” Hwaryun led, a hand on her hip.

“Teach me how to cook, please, okay? What, do you want me to get on my knees and beg?”

Hwaryun smirked, like she would have loved for that to happen, but simply said, “Alright, I’ll teach you. Now let’s see what you have that we have to work with, because we’re not going to be able to fix this”.

She gestured over at the grey stew and black rolls and Ehwa could see her point. There really was no fixing that. 

Ehwa then watched with only a few quips and comments as Hwaryun rummaged through the pantry and refrigerator, pulling out what she said she could work with. Finally, she pulled the half-full bottle of vodka out of the freezer.

“What are you gonna do with that?” Ehwa asked, from where she was sitting on the kitchen counter.

“We’re making penne alla vodka. What were you doing with it?”

“Wangnan found out Viole’d never gotten drunk before,” Ehwa sheepishly admitted, “There used to be five more bottles. Apparently Goseng knows how to make cocktails and Viole liked them so much he didn’t notice he was drunk till he was wayyyy past wasted”.

Hwaryun laughed at that, a real laugh that moved her chest and curled her cheeks. Ehwa stood there in awe, she didn’t know that the Guide could laugh like that, that she could laugh at all. A rosy tinge was brought to both their cheeks, for two very different reasons. Ehwa found herself wanting to trace the laugh lines of her face, the crinkles by her eyes, and she was shocked off of her seat at that realisation.

“So…” She segued awkwardly, “How do we do this?”

“Well first, we have to cook the penne, which means boiling a pot of water. I think you can handle that much at least”.

“I totally can!”

She totally couldn’t. She’d burnt the pot so many times they had to get a new one, but she had to save face in front of the Guide. She poured water into the pot and set it at the burner, before turning up the dial.

A shock went through her system when a hand went over her own, turning the dial down, “You don’t want it up all the way, that’ll burn the pot before it boils the water”.

Ehwa was stuck, face bright red, until Hwaryun moved her hand away.

“Oh, thanks,” She said shakily, “I didn’t know that”.

Hwaryun smirked, still so, so close, “Well now you do, and I’m sure I just saved many more pots in the future”.

“Y-Yeah…” Ehwa said, not paying attention to Hwaryun’s words, but rather her lips, glossy with some kind of subtle makeup that Ehwa was not even pretending she didn’t want to know the taste of.

“So now we just wait until the water comes to a boil”.

“Yeah” Their breaths were mixing, and Ehwa had never felt so intimate with another person before, despite being in much more illicit situations. Though, her kidnapping was as far from her mind as possible right now.

“Can I kiss you?”

“Yeah-” Ehwa stuttered to a stop, processing what Hwaryun had asked, “No. I mean, uh, yes. I mean, yes plea-”

Hwaryun swooped down and brought their lips together, and the last thing Ehwa saw before closing her eyes was her expression. Like a cat that got the canary. 

Hwaryun licked at the seam of Ehwa’s mouth, nudging it open, and Ehwa finally got a taste of her. Freshly peeled oranges, just like her perfume. It was overwhelming, it was addicting. Ehwa grabbed Hwaryun’s dress and tugged her in closer between her legs, deepening the kiss.

Hwaryun had one hand curled up firmly in Ehwa’s hair, and the other slowly moving down her back. Ehwa let out a yelp when it landed on her ass, but Hwaryun swallowed the noise and used her grasp to bring her even closer.

Ehwa wrapped both her arms around Hwaryun’s neck as the other woman nipped and sucked her way down her neck, leaving her breathless. Hwaryun nipped at the center of her throat and sucked, tearing a moan out of Ehwa that made Hwaryun chuckle. In response, Ehwa marked up the space behind Hwaryun’s ear.

They met back in the middle and Ehwa sighed into the kiss. It sapped all the air out of her lungs and made everything around them fuzzier. Only Hwaryun was in bright, sharp technicolor, gorgeous from every angle. 

They separated for air, and Hwaryun purred into her ear, “Darling you’re so pretty it hurts”.

Ehwa blushed, but took it as the challenge it was. She nipped on Hwaryun’s earlobe, a sensitive spot from her shivers, and whispered, “If you’re hurting then I must be in agony, because you’re gorgeous”.

Hwaryun obviously wasn’t anticipating a comeback, so the blush on her face that appeared was all the more beautiful. Ehwa kissed it, going from one cheek, across the bridge of her nose, to the other cheek. Hwaryun caught her mouth in a heated kiss at the end of it, bringing the hand that was in Ehwa’s hair beneath her shirt, playing with the clasp of her bra.

“Oh shit,” Ehwa looked over at the stove, “The water’s boiling”.

“Can’t we ignore it?” Hwaryun whined. Whined. Ehwa patted herself on the back for her superior kissing skills.

“No,” She said, taking the chance that this wasn’t just an isolated incident and pecking Hwaryun on the lips before she got out the pasta, “Now how long do I boil this?”

“15 minutes, now come back here,” She commanded, a goddess in messed up makeup. 

Ehwa took her time pouring in the pasta, licking her lips, tasting citrus. She’d never be able to eat an orange again, probably. She turned around to see Hwaryun sitting on the kitchen counter, foot tapping impatiently. She took the time to relish in this control she had, that she could get Hwaryun pent up and out of character, before she gave in and walked into her embrace.

This time, they were slower, perhaps even a little sweeter with each other. There were questions, so many questions, Ehwa wanted to ask. But those could wait until after the food was cooked. This time was theirs, and only theirs.

Hwaryun sucked down on the junction between Ehwa’s shoulder and neck, and Ehwa gave into the desire to drag her fingers through crimson hair. Her choice was awarded with a soft moan from Hwaryun, so she did it again, combing her fingers over her scalp.

Ehwa felt hands on each side of her face, and she looked up to see Hwaryun smiling gently at her. Before she could say a word, Hwaryun began kissing all over her face, muttering indulgences in between.

Ehwa had been called ‘beautiful’ before, but she’d never been called ‘lovely’ or ‘angel’ or ‘sweetheart’ and the names left her a blushing, blustering mess. It was completely unfair, but Hwaryun wouldn’t recede until she had kissed every part of her face. By the time she was done, smiling down at her work, the pasta was done as well.

They worked in tandem to make the sauce, Hwaryun giving instructions and ingredients, and Ehwa cutting them up and putting them together. This was the calmest she had felt in a kitchen in her whole life. Everything felt like it had stakes, that failure was death, even the kitchen, but now, with Hwaryun brushing a hand against her hip when she went to grab the garlic, Ehwa felt safe.

After the sauce was cooked, they combined it with the pasta. Ehwa bit her lip nervously as Hwaryun took a bite. When she got the thumbs up, Ehwa cheered and brought Hwaryun into a hug.

“Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!”

Hwaryun pulled away slightly, before leaving a lingering kiss on Ehwa’s lips, “You’re welcome, sweetheart”.

Then, the front door opened and Prince’s voice called out, “What smells so good?”

#my writing #tog #tower of god #kami no tou #ehwaryun #Yeon Ehwa #yeon yihwa #hwaryun #hwa ryun

[sweetwritertanya]

Not Your Type

Summary: Jungkook was waiting for you in the living room to watch a movie he wanted to see since forever. You had the biggest crush on the boy, but managed to keep your feelings at bay. But what happens when he can’t?

Warnings: just a whole lot of fluff, reader with insecurities but nothing major. There will be a part 2 with smutt soon, I think.

Word Count: 2334

“Y/N, what’s taking so long? I’m starting the movie without you!” Jungkook threatened, shouting from the living room.

“Just a second!” You yelled back, sighing and putting on the simple black t-shirt with white letters on the front.

You couldn’t help but growl a little in frustration. You had been trying to choose between a few tops you had in order to look a bit more presentable today. Unfortunately, none of them seemed to make you feel comfortable enough to actually get out of your room wearing them. Some were way too tight to your body, showing all your body rolls and plushy bits. Others were too big and made you look even chubbier than you already were.

It’s not like it mattered any way. You didn’t even understand why you were trying to impress the boy in the other room, for you knew he would never like you. It was your own damn fault that you grew a crush on him.

Looking in the full length mirror, you adjusted your hair and pulled on your denim shorts a bit, pulling them down so they were covering more of your thick legs. It was a hot day of summer, no matter how self-conscious you may be in front of your crush, you would not risk a heatstroke by wearing full pants.

Getting out of your bedroom, you made way to the living room where Jungkook was already waiting for you, movie paused and warm popcorn intoxicating the air with its sweet scent. Even with such simple clothes, all black as he seemed to like dressing nowadays, he looked stunning. His big eyes, the sharp jawline, the fluffy dark hair and those tentative lips. Everything about him appealed to you. Worst of all, even though you tried so very hard to deny it, deep down you knew that even if he didn’t look like this, you would probably like him just the same. And that scared you, because it would mean it was more than a silly crush.

Moving to sit on the opposite side of the couch where he was on, you smiled at him as you pulled your legs under you, leaning against the pillows on your back.

“All ready. Go on, you impatient dummy” you teased him.

The only reason it was just the two of you in your house was because the rest of the members had personal things to attend to on their day off, leaving behind a sulking Jungkook who was at one point very excited to come over and watch a movie he was dying to see for weeks, almost avoiding all social media so he wouldn’t get spoiled. So, when they told you the movie night was cancelled and you saw Jungkook’s disappointed expression, you couldn’t help but ask him if he wanted to watch it without the other members anyway. And his bunny smile was all the response you needed.

So, here you were, sitting together on your couch, watching a movie with a bowl of popcorns in between you. Jungkook seemed to be extra concentrated on the movie, not even glancing your way at all. You were actually glad about that, for you couldn’t control yourself and were staring at him for minutes at a time, trapped in your daydreams.

That is, until something Jungkook said caught your attention.

“Oh, this is my favorite part!” he smiled at the action scene playing on the TV.

Immediately you frown, looking confused at him.

“What? I thought you haven’t seen this movie before? And that’s why you were so intent on watching it today?” you asked him, eyes focused on his expression.

You saw his eyes double in size for a second, lips pressing together and wrinkles appear on his forehead as his eyebrows came together in regret. He swallowed dry, his eyes falling to the ground instead of the screen before he reached for the remote and paused the movie. When he turned to you, he was avoiding your gaze and had reddening cheeks.

Your heart skipped a bit at the sight, but your muscles tensed up with the instinct that something wasn’t right. You saw him take a deep breath before he spoke again.

“I-I a-already saw this movie” he confessed in a whisper, still not looking at you.

“Why did you lie?” you asked him, completely dumbfounded on what could possible make him lie about this.

He was tense too, starting to play with the fingers on his lap in a nervous action as he talked.

“I-I just…. I j-just wanted to spend time with you…” he was speaking so softly that you could barely hear him. But you did. A war between your heart and your head ensued.

“What do you mean?” the uncertainty on your voice made you cringe. “If… If you felt sorry for me because you guys cancelled, you didn’t have to. You just wasted your day off, Jungkook. I would have been fin-” You were interrupted by the man in front of you finally raising his head and looking straight at you, big worried eyes as he yelled.

“No!” he stopped you, flinching a bit with how loud he got. “Nothing like that. I… I…” Another deep breath as he closed his eyes. But when he opened them again, there was nothing but honesty and seriousness behind them. “I like you, Y/N.”

There was a beat of silence as he stared intensely at you. Your heart basically jumped out of your chest and you forgot how to breathe. But your head wouldn’t let you believe him.

“Yeah, right!” You chuckled, albeit with no humor behind it. “There’s no way you like someone like me.” His expression changed and you hated how he suddenly appeared hurt.

“You don’t believe me?” You were truly taken back at the concern on his voice.

“No.” You found yourself answering, shaking hands on top of your legs. “I’m not your type. Why the hell would you like someone like me? So, just tell me the truth, Jungkook.” You were now begging, somehow feeling prickles behind your eyes as this hurtful conversation continued. Your insecurities were starting to come up.

“I had a type. But then I met you” he responded, taking the popcorn off the couch and skootching closer to you. It was not unnoticed by you that the blush had still not left his cheeks. If anything, it was now spreading to his ears and down his neck. Still, he was making an effort to keep his eyes glued on yours as he spoke. “The moment you entered my life, something changed. It was like I saw you everywhere I looked, even when you went by unnoticed by everyone else. You were shy and quiet, but incredibly kind and friendly. I always wanted to go and talk to you, but never found the nerve to do so.”

You found yourself shaking your head slightly, wanting to believe his words so badly but incredibly terrified of doing so. This boy could break your heart in a million pieces so easily if he wanted to.

“I saw this movie two days ago. It was just an excuse to be with you” he continued. Then, he finally lowered his gaze back to his hands, stress coming out of him like a waterfall. “D-Do you… Do you not like me?”

And it sounded so absurd, for him to think that you were the one who didn’t like him when you’ve been pinning over him for God knows how many months, that you just gasped. He looked sheepishly up at you, biting his bottom lip in worry.

“I… I like you, Jungkook” you confessed in a whisper, relief coming over you for finally saying it out loud. But you still had troubles believing your feelings could be even remotely reciprocated.

The way his head shot up, eyes gawking at you and the most bright bunny smile taking over his beautiful features, you almost laughed at such an adorable reaction. It was the doubts in your mind that kept you from doing so, as you voiced your inner thoughts to him.

“I am nothing like the girls you like” you told him, watering eyes focusing on his dark ones.

“I know” he agreed, inching a bit closer to you, the broad smile still on his face.

“I’m not skinny. At all” you continued, watching as he still got closer.

“I know” he persisted, his gaze suddenly shifting from your eyes to your full lips.

“I’m not pretty. Why would you like me, Kook?” You weren’t sure you even wanted to know the answer, but, if it was to hurt you, you would rather hurt now than later on.

His eyes moved back to yours at that, dilated pupils staring intensely at you, so close that you could feel his breath against the skin of your face.

“You are the most beautiful person I have ever seen” he told you, voice low and sincere. Still, he could read in your eyes that you didn’t quite believe him. “Can… Can I show you?” he asked timidly, eyes darting back and forth between your eyes and lips. “Y/N… can I kiss you, please?”

You melted at that. It was like your blood turned to lava underneath your skin and, not trusting your voice, you just nodded. Even if this was just another dream, you would take full advantage of it.

That was all the incentive Jungkook needed, as he launched forward and pressed his lips against yours, so slowly and lovingly that you felt yourself sighing in pleasure against his mouth. Lifting his lips just for an instant, he adjusted his position on the couch and kissed you again, now with both hands on your chubby cheeks, certainly feeling how warm they were underneath his soft skin. His lips moved more intently this time, bringing tingling sensations at the nape of your neck and down your spine.

When you felt his tongue graze ever so slightly against your bottom lip, you gasped and shuddered underneath him. Taking that as an invitation, one of Jungkook’s hands moved to your wide hips, squishing the flesh there, as the other was grabbing the back of your head, keeping you as close as possible as his tongue explore the crevices of your mouth. The feeling of his wet member coming in contact with yours, swirling around it, brought moans from the back of your throat. You didn’t have the time to feel embarrassed by it, for Jungkook immediately groaned too, his kiss growing hungrier.

A pleasurable fug was beginning to cloud your thoughts. When you felt the hand that was on your hips move down and grasp your thick thigh instead, you finally found it in yourself the sense to push his chest just enough for him to understand.

Giving your lips one last peck, he contented himself on hiding his face on your shoulder, arms moving to surround your waist and pull you close to him. You were both panting from the kisses shared and only then did you realize that, somehow, you ended up laying on the couch with Jungkook on top of you.

“Sorry” you heard him whisper, bringing you back to reality. He still had his face hiding on your shoulder, beginning to leave small kisses against your skin. “I just couldn’t help myself. I’ve been wanting to kiss you for so long” he explained.

You smiled at that, bringing a hand up and running your fingers through his hair, feeling him tremor underneath your touch.

“Really?”

“Yeah. It was so frustrating, dreaming about you and barely being able to talk to you in real life.” His small pecks kept covering the skin of your shoulder and neck, descending just enough for him to be able to rest his head just above your chest, sighing as he did so. “Your heart is beating so fast, Y/N” he teased.

You pulled on his hair slightly at that, knowing he wanted to embarrass you. He just chuckled against your skin. But something he said stood out to you.

“You dreamed of me?” You asked, looking down but only being able to see the top of his hair. You did manage to feel the cheek he had pressed against your skin warm up, though.

“Damn it” he cursed in a whisper before raising himself up so he could look at you in the eyes. You already missed the weight and warmth of his body, but were rewarded the sight of his blushing cheeks and adoration filled eyes. “Y-Yeah. I did. Do you believe me now? That I think you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen? I like you so much, Y/N.”

And for once, staring into such honest eyes and after being kissed so lovingly like, you forgot all your insecurities and just trusted him. You may not quite understand it completely, but you believed him.

“I like you too, Jungkook. Too much” you share, both of your hands reaching up to grab his face and bring him down to your lips again. You feel his smile grow as you move your lips against him, but he raised his head up before the kiss would deepen.

“This means we’re dating now… right?” He started saying it as an affirmation, but his own doubts made him add the question at the end, something you found incredibly adorable. You smiled sweetly up at him.

“Yes. For as long as you want me” you assured him, pulling behind his neck so he would kiss you again. You would for sure grow addicted to his kisses.

“So beautiful” you heard him whisper before he attached his mouth to yours, moving with passion and adoration. “Forever, then” he said against your lips.

You were sure you had never been happier than in that moment, with such words ringing blissfully in your ears, his warm body pressed against yours, the sweetest of kisses leaving you a shuddering mess.

#jungkook x reader #chubbyreader #bts #bts chubby reader #bts imagine #bts fanfic #bts fanfction #jungkook #jeon jungguk #jungkook x y/n #jungkook x you #bts fluff

[logicalbookthief]

will you take this babe to be your only

"It’s all yours, Eds," he says, batting his eyes at Eddie’s glare. "On one condition."

He drops to his knee, just like they do in the movies. His lips make a wet, smacking sound as he kisses the back of Eddie’s hand, grin unrepentant.

"Make me the happiest man in the seventh grade?"

OR: Five times Richie proposed to Eddie as a joke and the one time he was serious. Based on THIS amazing, adorable reddie art by @faiyx. Title from “Let’s Get Married” by Bleachers.

Link to ao3

Richie saunters over to friends – specifically over to Eddie, who’s giving Stan and Bill a wide berth as they fiddle with Bill’s bike. But Eddie catches the glint of his ringpop in the sun and crowds him instantly.

"Hey! Where’s mine?"

"Sorry, Eds. Only one left." He is sorry for that; Richie meant to buy one for Eddie, too. He is decidedly less sorry for the reaction he knows his counter-offer will induce. "Tell you what, I’ll share."

"Gross!" Eddie reddens with his signature disgust. "I don’t want your spit. Who knows what germs you’re carrying! Flu, strep, halitosis–"

"You can’t spread halitosis," Stan interrupts. Eddie shoots him a look that is both confused and scathing.

It’s kind of cute, actually. The furrowed brow, the tightening around his lips. Everything Eddie does is at least kind of cute. Even when he’s trying to connive Richie out of his candy.

"C’mon, Rich. Red’s my favorite flavor."

"Red isn’t a flavor."

"You know what I mean, dipshit."

"Eds, you kiss your mother with that mouth?" Richie tuts. "Or does she save all the lip-action for me?"

"Shut up! You’re so fucking gross.” Eddie scowls, making a lunge for Richie’s arm. He’s got a couple inches on Eddie, and it’s way too easy to hold the ring out of reach, so Eddie has to jump for it.

Richie could tease Eddie like this all day, but an idea strikes, and oh, he can’t resist.

"Okay, you’ve convinced me. It’s all yours, Eds," he says, batting his eyes at Eddie’s glare. "On one condition."

He drops to his knee, just liken they do in the movies. His lips make a wet, smacking sound as he kisses the back of Eddie’s hand, grin unrepentant.

"Make me the happiest man in seventh grade?"

Eddie sputters, his cheeks a hot, fluorescent pink. Too deer-in-the-headlights to even freak over the germs from Richie’s saliva.

"Our Eddie could do better," Stan shouts. Richie yelps in offense.

"Take that back, Stanflakes!"

While he’s distracted, Eddie swipes the ringpop and sticks it in mouth. All smug, completely unrepentant. Richie would be annoyed, if his stomach wasn’t twisted in  fluttery knots all of a sudden.

Weird. Maybe he should lay off the candy, after all.

*

*

*

*

"Expert quarry-diver, Richard Tozier, will now attempt his triple back-splash bellyflop." Richie clears his throat of the British voice, the tips of his toes dangling over the edge of the cliff. He bends to a diving pose, sticking his butt towards his audience.

"Would you be careful?" Eddie nags. "Do you know the statistics of water-related injury among kids our age?"

"Do you know the statistics of virgins who quote statistics all the time?" Richie mimics Eddie’s high-pitched tone, chuckling at how huffy he gets. "Lighten up, Eds."

Mike peers over his shoulder. "It is a pretty big fall."

Richie snorts. "Not as big as my–"

His foot slips, careening back into nothing. The last thing he sees before he plummets is Eddie, seized by terror.

As far as last sights go, it isn’t so bad.

He slams against the water, hard. The impact punches the air out of his lungs. He sinks for a bit, dazed by pain, until the tightness in his chest becomes almost unbearable.

Disoriented, Richie flails his arms, aiming for the surface but going nowhere. His lungs have started to ache with urgency when he’s grabbed under the arms. They breach the surface, gulping in a glorious burst of oxygen, and finally, he’s set on land. He gasps, water sluicing past his lips, tasting all the nasty shit Eddie claims is in there.

Eddie.

"Eddie," he croaks, his vision blurry. He must’ve lost his glasses.

"You idiot," Eddie screeches. Wetness clings to his lashes. Richie suspects it isn’t from the quarry yet doesn’t dare voice this aloud. “I told you, I told you to be careful, and what did you do!? You could’ve broken your neck!"

"Or my huge dick,” Richie coughs, as his glasses are shoved back onto his face. He looks up to see Stan rolling his eyes.

"Besides his brain, is anything broken?”

"Dr. K doesn’t think so," says Ben, smiling in relief. "He jumped in after you, then Bill and I, and we swam you to shore."

"My hero," Richie sing-songs. He grins at his savior. "Marry me, Eds?"

"Pull that shit again and I'll let you drown," Eddie promises, though it's sort of undermined by how he's still hovering over Richie. Clingy Eddie is a worried Eddie, and selfishly, Richie likes it.

"You’ll have a helluva bruise," Bev remarks, poking at his skin.

"I’ve only seen people fall that way in cartoons," Mike exclaims.

Stan guffaws. "You dropped like Wile E. Coyote."

"Idiot," Eddie repeats. He hasn’t let go of Richie’s wrist, the point of contact burning so hot it may as well be imprinted on his skin. “Next time, you better listen to me.”

Richie beams. "Of course. What would I do without you, Eds?"

"Die, apparently," says Bill, and Richie laughs so hard water spurts out of his nose.

*

*

*

*

It’s the dead of night when Richie climbs through Eddie’s window, but the motions are so familiar, he could probably do it blind. He’s walked the distance from his house to the Kaspbrak’s so many times he could tell you the exact amount of steps it takes from his room to Eddie’s front door.

The excursions used to be a necessity, considering how frequently his mom would keep him home from school, and how she refused to let any of them visit Eddie when they brought his homework. Ever since Eddie put his foot down over the gazebos, he hadn’t missed nearly as much, until about a week ago.

A few days of absence is tolerable, though by no means enjoyable for Richie. A week is his absolute limit.

He slides the window open and slips inside. The room’s empty, except for a nest of blankets on the bed. Richie frowns, scanning for signs of life. Then the nest shifts, and he hears a sniffle.

"Rich?" Eddie pokes his head out of the cocoon. "What’re you doing here?"

Maybe it’s that he figured this was a case of Mrs. K’s smothering, but he isn’t prepared for the sight of Eddie: cheeks flushed, hair rumpled, his voice a sore-sounding whisper. "You really are sick, huh," says Richie, dumbly.

Eddie scoffs, a cough wracking his whole body. "No, I quarantined myself for fun! I love the smell of stale air and Vicks vapor rub."

"Geez, if you’re gonna be a dick, I’ll take my care-package and go," Richie turns on his heel, as if to leave.

Fingers curl around his arm, stronger than he expected. Richie cuts to Eddie’s eyes, wide and vulnerable. "Please don’t go."

"Eds, hey," Richie says gently. He cards his fingers through his sweaty hair, feeling like an ass. "I was kidding."

Shakily, Eddie nods. "No, it’s okay... I forgot how it was, you know? Being hold up in my room, all by myself, because I’m sick." He swallows, drawing out a wince. "It’s..."

Lonely. Eddie doesn’t have to say it for Richie to read him loud and clear. And who wouldn’t be, trapped in a dark house with only Mrs. K and her soaps for company?

If he wasn’t just some punk teen with two bucks to his name, he’d take Eddie away from this – this prison of a room, with his mom as warden; this shithole town, with all its shake and secrets – in a heartbeat.

"Marry me," he blurts. Eddie blinks at him.

So you’ll never be alone, is what he means. What he says is, "That way if you die, I’ll get your comics."

"Fuck you," Eddie rasps. It sounds more like fug you. Richie snickers.

"You’re cute when you’re congested. I can’t take anything you say seriously."

"Why don’t you put your mouth to good use for once," Eddie grumbles, and slaps a comic into Richie’s palm. "My eyes are too watery to read."

Richie grins and does as he’s told. Probably the only instance Eddie doesn’t complain about his voices are when he reads aloud; even when they were little kids, Eddie would sit entranced, saying he was the best storyteller.. He attempts to keep the volume low, even though there’s a 90% percent chance Mrs. Kaspbrak is already passed out with a bottle of Chardonnay.

After a while, Eddie starts to doze against his shoulder, and even Richie can’t hold his eyes open much longer. He may as well spend the night; as long as he skedaddles before breakfast, Mrs. K will be none-the-wiser.

"Move over," Richie orders, slipping under the covers. They’re all elbows and knees, yet still skinny enough to fit together in the bed. It’s narrow, though. The fit is tight. His heart’s fluttering so loudly he hopes Eddie’s ears are congested, too.

"I’ll get you sick," Eddie frets. A tidal wave of affection rushes over Richie, because the concern is I’m infectious stay away, not ew, get away from me, you fag.

He dreads the day they’ll be too old, or it’ll be too gay, for Richie to sneak into his room and share his bed. So he savors it while he has it, this closeness. Shuffles their positions until his chin is tucked over Eddie’s shoulder, his chest pressed against Richie’s front.

"There," he says, grateful they’re no longer facing each other, so Eddie can’t see the flush on his cheeks. "Now you can’t breathe on me."

Eddie shivers against the cool gust of air over his neck, or maybe he’s feverish, curling back against Richie in search of warmth. Emboldened, Richie throws an arm over his middle, slotting them together. For Richie, it’s like a piece of himself falling into place.

Tomorrow he’ll complain about Eddie’s hideous morning breath and be kicked for his trouble. Tonight he drifts off to the hiss of Eddie’s breaths and is thankful for every wheeze.

*

*

*

*

"Jesus, Rich. Those things will rot your lungs before you’re forty."

Eddie grunts when he spies Richie, a cigarette dangling between his fingers. The glow is unmistakable in the low-lighting of Derry’s school halls.

Richie takes a long, exaggerated drag. "Yeah, yeah, so you’ve told me. A gazillion times."

"You survived an evil sewer clown just to kill yourself with cigarettes?" Eddie makes his bitchiest face.

"When you put it that way," Richie mutters, stubbing it out. Doesn’t want to give Eddie a reason to leave, anyway.

He slinks over to Richie, nose wrinkling at the smell. "Why aren’t you with Becky?"

"Who?"

Eddie rolls his eyes. "Your date, dumbass."

Of course Richie remembers. Becky “B-Cup” Wilkins. She sits by him in physics, where they copy each other’s work (usually with mutually devastating results). This was the first year of high school she had her braces off, and with the metal gone, she was keen to practice her kissing. Richie was more than happy to oblige.

He was a little floored when she asked him to the dance, though. Him and the Losers generally had a pact to go together, but that may have more to do with the lack of invitations from anyone else. They all encouraged Richie to accept the invite “before she realizes what she’s getting into,” as Stan so eloquently put it.

Becky was pretty, overbite or no, and she ran with a crowd of girls that were way out of his league. She had a mean streak to her, too, and apparently he liked that in a girl.

(And apparently in boys, too.)

Her friends were nice to him the whole night, even laughed at his jokes. Whether they thought he was charming in an off-beat kind of way, or simply being considerate of Becky, he wasn’t sure, nor did he particularly care.

Until he returned from the punch bowl to the girls in a cluster, giggling.

"Come on, if you had to pick a loser, who’d it be?" asks Liz Maloney.

"The short one, I guess," another girl answers. Curious, Richie follows her gaze, heart sinking at the sight of Eddie, standing off to the side with Ben and Stan, while Bev and Bill dance. His hair’s combed for once, shiny with gel, and the sweater that looks soft to the touch. Not as soft as his skin, yet it isn’t a fair comparison, since Richie’s imagined touching that for far longer.

"God, Kris, you know he’s gay, right?" Liz jeers. His stomach lurches at the disdain in her voice. "He’s never so much as looked at a girl."

"So what, he’s gay and can’t be cute?" Kris puts a hand on her hip. "Better gay than fat."

"At least Hanscom isn’t allergic to pussy."

They crack up at that, and in the mix, he hears Becky’s little snigger, the one he found so charming. Not anymore.

"You know who I’d pick?" Richie bursts in obnoxiously, startling Kris so bad she yelps. "All of them, over you."

Becky shot him a look as he left, like he was the weirdo upset over nothing, and Richie decided he was a better off a loser.

"Oh! Her." He snaps his fingers. "Yeah, we weren’t compatible, you could say. Turns out, her B-Cup was mostly tissue."

"She dumped you," Eddie surmises.

"Yeah," says Richie, because it’s easier than the truth.

His expression dims, sympathy bleeding from every pore. Eddie bumps his shoulder. "I’m sorry, dude."

Richie shrugs. "Bev is saving me a dance as we speak. I’m sure she’s got one saved for you, too."

"No thanks, I’m good." Eddie shudders. "All the sweat, the touching, the–"

"–the bacteria?" Richie finishes knowingly. "Fuck. Can’t you let loose for one night, Eds?"

"Don’t call me that," he snaps. "And what’re you doing?"

"Crossing it off your bucket list," Richie says cheerily, yanking Eddie to his feet. "C’mon, man. What if you wake up with a staff infection tomorrow? Do you wanna die without dancing at your senior homecoming?"

"Shit for brains, that isn’t how staff infect–" At his unfaltering grin, Eddie relents. "You know what, fine! Whatever it takes to shut you up."

"That’s the spirit!"

It’s obvious Eddie doesn’t quite know where to put his hands. Richie knows exactly where he wants to put his, yet he’s too much of a coward.

"You can barely hear the music," Eddie complains. "We look like idiots."

"Nobody’s watching," Richie presses, holding Eddie a bit tighter, the fear he’ll pull away worse than the fear they’ll be caught. "I could hum, if you prefer."

Eddie snorts, ducking his head, chin brushing Richie’s chest. "I don’t really know what I’m doing," he admits, self-consciously.

"Relax, you’re fine." Richie twists him into an awkward twirl, then does the same to himself, cackling at Eddie’s reluctant smile. "I’ll show you some moves when we go camping at Mike’s next weekend."

Immediately, the smile disappears. "My mom won’t let me."

"Eds,"  Richie groans. "You’re killing me."

"I tried!" Eddie cries miserably. "I tried to ask if I could visit my aunt in Chamberlain, and sneak out with you guys instead, even though it was a long-shot. But she wouldn’t go for that, either!"

"Well, there is no way you’re missing Ben’s triple-layer s’mores or your dancing lessons. Let’s brainstorm." Richie spends a second wracking his brain. "Option one, we fake your death."

"Be serious, Rich."

"Okay, okay. Option two." He makes the mistake of looking at Eddie, the words briefly catching in his throat. "We get married, run away together. As your husband, I’d totally overrule your mom."

"Where’s my ring?" Eddie asks, smirking.

Richie surprises him with a dip, just to hear his squawk. "You got to admit, Eddie Tozier has quite the ring to it," he jokes, his mouth so close to Eddie’s he feels light-headed.

"Sounds like a bad cologne brand." Eddie stares up at him, dark eyes imploring. Like he truly believes in Richie, trusts him to fix anything. "What’s option number three?"

"I stop living in sin and make it official with your mom," Richie blurts, wriggling his eyebrows. "As your stepdad, I could persuade Sonia to let our darling boy have fun with his friends."

He should’ve predicted the smack, but it jolts him enough that he drops Eddie on his ass, collapsing into a fit of giggles next to him on the floor.

"You’re sick," Eddie hisses, with no real bite. "No wonder your date left you."

Richie yanks him into a noogie. "Good thing I’ll always have you, Eddie Spaghetti."

*

*

*

*

He has Eddie, wholly, unconditionally. Until he doesn’t.

Until the memories fade, day by day, month by month, and he forgets every lingering touch, every averted glance, every painstaking swipe of his father’s pocketknife as he carved their initials into the kissing bridge. He loses Eddie, only to find him twenty-seven years later, and then only to lose him again.

Almost. Richie sighs, savoring the steady beep of the monitor beside him. He almost loses Eddie.

They narrowly escaped being crushed to death under the Neibolt, mostly because Richie, in his desperate certainty that Eddie was alive, refused to leave him behind. How could he leave him to die in that cold, dark chasm – Eddie would’ve hated it, he was afraid of the dark, kept a night-light well into his teens, and Richie couldn’t tell the others, not only ‘cause he was sobbing too harsh to make any sense, but ‘cause he promised Eds he’d never tell a soul – when he could barely pry himself from Eddie at the hospital, while the doctors insisted they take him into surgery, now.

So Richie waits, his hands quaking at the memory of Eddie’s skin, gone cold with shock. He waits, helpless, while the doctors try to shove Eddie’s innards back in and stitch up the hole in his chest.

By some miracle, they manage to do it with, and with him only flatlining once, the nurse informs him proudly. Like Richie should be ecstatic that Eddie had to be physically resuscitated, even after they brought him to safety, after killing that fucking clown.

"I’m sorry. Until he’s moved to a room, only family are allowed in the ICU," she explains to the six losers standing vigil. Richie is more than a bit bewildered when she motions him forward regardless. "Sir, you can come with me."

Still a little dazed, he follows without question, lest this privilege be revoked.

"Your husband is heavily sedated, so if he wakes he’ll likely be disoriented. I’ll be good to have a familiar face." She nods to the chair at Eddie’s bedside. "Make sure to keep him calm and comfortable."

With a final, warm smile, she leaves them alone. Richie staggers into the seat, fumbling for Eddie’s hand, where it lies limp against the starch white sheets. He doesn’t realize he’s crying until the fat drops of tears are sliding down the bridge of his nose and into the bed. His chest swells, full of all the regrets he’s carried, all the shame he’s hidden. All the love that’s interwoven into the two.

And Eddie has no idea.

No idea that Richie would fight a million fucking clowns if doing so would keep Eddie safe, let him smile, bright and buoyant, like he had at Richie when he thought he’d killed It for real.

Hell, the nurse from middle-of-fucking-nowhere Derry could tell he was head-over-heels in love, yet he couldn’t find the balls to confess to the one guy in the world who deserved to know.

Richie isn’t sure how long he’s slumped over, their fingers intertwined, before Eddie stirs.

"You’re okay, Eds. It’s Richie, I’m here," he says softly, clutching his hand tighter. "Not leaving you, buddy. Not ever again."

His brow pinches, bewildered. "When did you...?"

"Never mind," snorts Richie. His smile hardly wavers, and it’s hopelessly adoring. Eddie has that effect on him, it seems. "Just running my mouth."

"Per usual," Eddie huffs, weakly. "Did we... It, did we...?"

The monitor speeds up, signaling his distress. Richie acts on instinct, standing up, using his body to shield him from the room, the world. It’s only them, just Richie with his palm over Eddie’s cheek, thumb caressing his scar, his dimples.

"It’s dead," he assures. "Everyone made it out, we’re safe. You’re safe now."

Eddie turns into the touch, nose brushing against his fingertips. Richie sucks in a breath, his heart a jackhammer in his throat. He’s never wanted to kiss anyone like he wants to kiss Eddie right now.

Talking. Talking will distract him from that dangerous line of thought. "We carried you out. You’re in the hospital, attached to no less than a thousand wires, that I'm afraid to poke in case you explode."

A groggy smile tugs at the corners of Eddie's mouth.

"Oh, and the staff thinks I’m your incredibly devoted husband," Richie adds wryly. "What do ya say, Eds? Don’t want to get accused of hospital fraud."

Eddie hums dreamily. "I have to divorce my wife first."

Richie nearly swallows his tongue.

He could blame it on the drugs. Hell, it's probably a joke. Like his half-hearted attempt to startle a laugh out of Richie, his chin smeared with blood, the "I fucked your mom" comment followed by a streak of red.

Except it isn't a joke. This is something else entirely.

"Wha– What are you saying?"

His eyes open to slits, glaring at Richie through his lashes. "I’m trying to be brave."

Richie chokes out a laugh. "Eds, you’re braver than anybody I’ve ever met."

"Hmm." Eddie exhales, eyes slipping closed. Richie stifles the pinprick of panic begging for Eddie to keep your eyes open, stay awake, please, look at me. "Brave. Not happy."

And if that doesn’t fucking break his heart.

"We can fix that," Richie whispers, the words unbidden but earnest. He talks a lot of shit, but this, this is as vulnerable as he's ever allowed himself to be. "You and me, Eds. I want–I want you to be happy."

Happy with me.

There’s no answer. Snores drift from Eddie’s slackened lips. Richie laughs, wobbly and tear-laced, as he nuzzles his hair.

"You rest, Eddie Spaghetti. I’ll be here when you wake up." He strokes his knuckles over his forehead, and then kisses him there, just below his hairline. Fuck it, he’s tired of fearing the worst, hiding the truth.

If Eddie wasn’t afraid, neither was Richie.

*

*

*

*

"Did I ever tell you guys I proposed to my boyfriend when we were twelve-years-old? With a ringpop?"

He garners a couple of hollers and a few scattered ’awws’.

"Let me finish!" Richie shushes. "I proposed to Eddie when we were kids, and, while our friend Stan was dunking on me, he stole the ring off my hand and stuck it in his mouth. He was all: haha, got ya bitch! The lil’ shit."

The crowd titters. Besotted, Richie lays a hand over his heart and sighs.

"Proposed with a ringpop. That is the height of romance – but only if you’re a twelve-year-old. If I pulled that stunt a a grown man, you wouldn’t be waking up to a Buzzfeed article titled: 42-year-old Comedian Ties Knot with Childhood Sweetheart. You’d be reading a news report claiming: 42-year-old Comedian Justifiably Murdered By His Boyfriend."

Cheers ring out, despite him yelling, "Don't cheer for my death!"

"You know what’s really pathetic? Besides the fact my romance game peaked before puberty." He pauses, allowing the chuckles to peter out before he continues, "The worst part is, it was a joke . Yup. I didn’t know I was gay, let alone in love with my best friend! I did it solely to get a rise out of him, and boy, did he get cute when he was mad."

In a thoughtful tone, Richie reflects, "In retrospect, the gay thing should’ve been clear sooner."

At the crowd's glee, a grin splits his cheeks.

"Speaking of my gay awakening, he’s in the audience tonight." He locks eyes with Eddie in the front row, sandwiched between Ben and Mike. "Eddie, my love. Light of my life. Fire in my loins. Won’t you join me on stage, so the adoring fans can get a look at you?"

The crowd claps in thunderous agreement. Eddie shakes his head, vehemently at first, losing gusto as the Losers gently (forcibly) encourage him toward the stage. He flashes a quick, uncomfortable grin at the audience before leaning into Richie, whispering "The hell are you doing, asshole?" which, for all his tact, the mic catches anyway.

Richie tucks a now blushing Eddie against his side, showing off his gorgeous boyfriend. "Am I the luckiest guy in the world or what?" he shouts to raucous wolf-whistles. "Okay, that was maybe too enthusiastic. He's spoken for!"

He runs his palm over Eddie's shoulder, soothing the discomfort centered in the tendons of his neck. Once he relaxes, Richie trails it down his arm, skirting across his lower back. "I know you all paid good money – frankly too much money – to hear me joke on this stage tonight. But if you don’t mind, I am going to be serious for a minute."

Performative groans echo here and there, but for the most part, everyone's listening attentively.

"Twelve-year-old me was too afraid to be serious about things. The gay thing, the in love with my best friend thing. God, a lot of things." He turns to Eddie, his throat bobbing with nerves. "I’m not afraid anymore."

He’s thirty years older, his joints a lot creakier, but it’s the simplest thing in the world to drop to his knee and reach for the tiny velvet box in his pocket.

"Sorry it isn’t red-flavored," he says dryly, unclasping it to reveal the gold band inside. "Or edible."

In addition to the spotlights, there’s a dozen camera flashes going off. None of it matters, his sole focus on Eddie's deer-in-the-headlights expression.

"Rich," Eddie wheezes. It isn't an asthma attack, though it sounds like one. "What are you doing?"

"About to be shitting my pants on stage." Eddie snorts out a laugh, an effortless reminder of how in love with him Richie is. "But you make me brave."

The creases of his mouth loosen, his eyes wet around the edges. After a year, Eddie still tends to get that look – that look of utter awe. Less now than before, yet it seems that no matter how much or how often he's told, Eddie is awed by being so loved. Luckily, Richie never tires of telling him.

"Eds, I love you more than anything on earth. Will you marry me?"

He barely asks the question before Eddie hauls him to his feet, down into a kiss so hot his glasses fog up.

The audience erupts into deafening applause. Richie doesn't need to hear anything besides the frantic "yes, yes, yes, I love you, you idiot" Eddie’s pressing against his lips. Parting with a firm, wet smack of lips, Richie pulls away before he jumps him there on stage.

"You’ve been a lovely audience, folks!" he exclaims into the mic. "But if you'll excuse us, I've got a proposal to consummate. "

With a wink, Richie bustles Eddie off-stage. They make it past the curtain before he’s got Eddie hiked up against the wall.

Eddie paws at his shirt, while Richie’s slide towards the swell of his ass. "Can’t wait to get you out of these clothes, God, Eds," he moans reverently, raking his eyes over his fiancé – hang on. "Is that my shirt?"

"Is that my ring?" Eddie fires back. He’s smirking, though, and oh, without a shadow of a doubt, he was getting laid after the show, proposal or no.

"All yours, baby." Richie takes the hint nonetheless, slipping the ring on Eddie’s finger, where it belongs. He can’t resist another kiss, this one longer, sweeter.

"I was always yours," Eddie murmurs once they’ve parted, cheeks pleasantly flushed. "All you had to do was ask."

And it’s shit like that, confessions of love spoken so plainly, without the conflict that’s ruled most of their lives, that reminds Richie how lucky they are to have each other.

They are also a huge pain in each other’s ass, so, "Does that mean I should return the ring?"

"Fuck no," Eddie scoffs. "I’m wearing it forever. And tonight, for sure."

"It’ll be the only thing I wear tonight," he adds, a sultry whisper against in Richie’s ear.

He really is the luckiest man, ever.

#reddie #reddie fic #eddie kaspbrak #richie tozier #it chapter 2 #oblivious childhood sweethearts eventually realize they're in love #and eddie lives so they live happily ever after #rip to stephen king and andy but I'm different

[awkwardlyflustered]

The Competition

A/N: This is a fic for @speedykidprofessorexpert, I really hope that you enjoy this. I’m actually pretty proud of this one, I really hope you like it. Sorry it’s so long and badly written. Also, sorry for the awful ending.

The Hargreeve family was sitting in their living room playing some board game that was going on forever. 

“Ugh, are we almost done here? I have other things I could be doing,” Five complained.

“Oh come on, this is fun,” Allison tried to reason with Five. While this little banter was going on Klaus slipped a couple hundreds into his stack, hoping no one noticed. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case for him.

“Hey, cheater!” Diego exclaimed after Klaus stole the fake money, poking his side in the process, causing Klaus to let out a squeak.

“Oh, yeah, I forgot you were ticklish,” Luther said moving towards Klaus. Five smirks and sits still, a little jealous that Klaus got to get tickled and not him. While Five was having this little train of thought Luther had pinned Klaus down (with very few protests) and the other three were approaching him slowly. Diego looked a little sadistic, Allison had a loving look in her eyes, and Vanya looking a little scared and excited at the same time. Once they made it to Klaus Diego sat on his legs, Allison went on the left side of his torso and Vanya went onto his right. Vanya poked his side earning them another squeak. Diego held up three fingers and counted down with them, and on one they launched the attack. Klaus shrieked and curved his body upward trying to escape the tickly feelings. While all of this was happening Five had been staring off into nothing. Five quickly snapped out of his trance when he heard his name.

“Wait, what? Did someone say my name?”

“Yeah, I was saying that we might have actually found someone more ticklish than you,” Diego replied, causing both Five and Klaus to turn cherry red.

“THERERERES NOHOHOHOO WAAAAY,” Klaus said through his laughter.

“Please, there’s no way I’m more ti-sensitive than you.”

“Aw, look at him, he can’t even say the word,” Allison cooed causing Five to adopt an even darker shade of red onto his face.

“WAAAAIT BEN SAAAAAYYYYS HEEE HAAAAAS AAAAN IDEAAAAA.” After hearing this, the other three stopped tickling him and let Klaus catch his breath so he could conjure up Ben. After a few seconds of heavy breathing Klaus got to his feet and closed his eyes in concentration. Klaus let out a small huff and Ben appeared in front of everyone’s eyes. After everyone said a quick hello to Ben and gave him a hug Ben share his idea.

“Alright, so since this is obviously going to be a fight, why don’t we just have a competition? Luther can hold them both down and they each pick girl and one guy to be on their ‘team’ or opposing team depending on how you think about it. The four of us tickle one spot at a time, but we tickle them both at the same time and whoever has the stronger reaction ‘wins’ that round, or loses depending on how you think about it. Then whoever has the stronger reaction on the most spots in the end ‘wins’ or-”

“Loses depending on how you think about it,” the rest of the family finishes for him.

“Exactly.”

“Sounds good to me, Five, Klaus, rock paper scissors to see who gets to pick first,” Allison commanded. The boys did the game, and Klaus came out on top.

“Alright, Vanya, you’re on my team.”

“Okay, then Ben, I want you,” Five said pointing at said boy. The two Hargreeves hurried over to their respective sides, quickly followed by Allison going to Five and Diego going to Klaus because the rules stated, one boy, one girl on each team. Five and Klaus both looked at each other and said a nervous good luck then laid on their backs with their arms above their heads. Luther was quick to scoop up both pairs of wrists and firmly pin them down. 

“So start on neck?” Vanya asked, walking towards Klaus’ head without waiting for an answer. The other three complied stationing themselves at their respective “teammate’s” neck. 

“Okay, 3, 2, 1, go!” Luther announced, unleashing a flurry of fingers onto the necks. Five merely giggled and tried to scrunch up his shoulders, nothing much. Klaus on the other hand… Oh boy, Klaus practically shrieked then fell into loud belly laughter.

“Hmm, I wonder who wins, what do you guys think?” Ben asked

“SHUUUUUT UUUUP BEHEHEHEN” Klaus tried to sound mad, but let’s be honest, in what world can you sound mad while being tickled? The four ticklers took their time to draw to a slow stop that still had Klaus giggling. 

“Okay, so it’s 1-0, underarms next?” Allison asked. They all nodded and Luther counted down again and once again, it began. Five writhed around from side to side and giggled at a loud volume. But once again, then there was Klaus, Klaus was practically shooting into the air, but only giggling. Everyone thought it was quite endearing, how his body was betraying his voice or vice versa depending on how you think about it (Ben’s partial thought process). 

“Well, they’re both only giggling, but Five’s giggles are louder,” Ben observed causing Five to blush crimson.

“Yeah, but Klaus is squirming around a lot more than Five,” Diego commented, digging in more to Klaus causing him to yelp.

“Stooop teeeeeaaaasing,” Five and Klaus said in unison. Everyone just laughed at their brothers, glad to see them laughing.

“Geez, Klaus, that’s 2-0, are you even going to give Five a chance?” Ben taunted his buddy.

“Whatever, let’s just get this over with,” Klaus said trying to hide his blush in his arms. 

“Your wish is my command, what do you say guys, ribs next?” Everyone quietly agreed, well almost everyone.

“No!” Five squeaked out, his face visibly paler than the last time.

“Sorry Five, you don’t really get a say in this,” Allison said, placing her hands on Five’s ribs making him squeak.

“Aw, he’s so cute, did you hear the squeak?” Vanya gushed over her younger (ish) brother. 

“I’d stop teasing him if I were you, I don’t think his face can go any redder, and I think he’s gonna blow up if it does get any redder,” Ben said also placing his hand onto Five’s ribs.

“Sh-shut up.” As soon as the words left his mouth Five regretted it, both Allison and Ben fug into his ribs at the same time. Shortly followed by Diego and Vanya copying the action on Klaus. Five felt like his stomach was about to touch the roof with how high he arched his back. Five immediately came crashing trying to evade the tickly feelings invading his ribs.

“GAAAAAAH STAHAHAHAHAP,” Five squealed, not really wanting it to stop, but he wanted to put on a show for them. Meanwhile, Klaus was merely giggling once again at the tingling he felt at his ribs. The rib tickling continues on for a couple more minutes before they all conclude that Five is the winner.

“Alright, 2-1, you’re catching up Five,” Diego said, giving him a quick pat on the shoulder making Five cringe. “Alright, let’s continue this, sides next?” The two “victims” just sat there in silence not wanting to waste energy. Luther started up the countdowns again, but even before that both Klaus and Five were already squirming and giggling.

“We haven’t even touched you guys yet,” Allison said astounded.

“They’re just that ticklish,” Ben answered digging into Five’s sides causing the same reactions that had ensued with the rib tickling. Klaus, however, had a much different reaction than what happened with the rib tickling. Klaus had about the same reaction as Five was having right at this moment. He was thrashing every which way and laughing just about as hard as he possibly could.

“Hmm, well they both seem to be pretty ticklish here, so why don’t we try something a little stronger,” Diego suggested with a wave of his eyebrows. Everyone nodded and started leaning their heads downward.

“NOHOHOHO, NAHAHAHAT FAHAHAHAIR,” Five said trying to move away from the incoming pairs of lips.

“IIIIIIII AGREEEEEEEE.” The four of them didn’t listen, all at once they all blew a raspberry into Five’s and Klaus’ sides. Five arched his back to the point that it looked like it was going to break, shrieked, then fell into silent laughter, slamming back down onto the ground writhing around like a worm. Klaus, simply fell into silent laughter, not having enough energy to fight back. After both of their faces turned blue everyone stopped and let them sit up and take a break.

“You guys having fun?” Vanya asked rubbing Five and Klaus’ backs.

“No,” they both said in unison a little too quickly. Everyone just smiled at the two lovingly. 

“Are you guys ready to continue yet? We only have two spots left, right guys?” Allison asked.

“Yeah, I think so, unless of course they tie, in which case we have three,” Ben responds. Five and Klaus groan, but still lay down side by side with their arms above their heads. Allison was first to speak,

“Stomach then?” Everyone nodded and waited for Luther to count down. On three all hell broke loose, Klaus was screaming with laughter and bucking like a bronco. Five wasn’t handling it much better, he was bouncing around from side to side, also screaming with laughter, but squeaking and snorting along with it every couple of seconds. Everyone already knew who had won, but they couldn’t help but continue.

“Alright, guys, we know who won, they’re turning blue again,” Luther input, not wanting to kill his siblings. Everyone stopped and repositioned themselves down at the boys’ feet.

“Alright boys, 3-2, Five made his comeback Klaus, unless you tie it here, Five wins,” Diego said smirking, knowing very well that Klaus’ feet were almost as ticklish as his were.

“You know, you’re just being mean at this point,” Klaus attempted to pout, but he couldn’t break the smile on his face. Luther started the countdown for the fifth time now and they started the attack on the guys’ feet. Five quietly giggled and slightly moved side to side, the tickling not really affecting him that much seeing as how his feet weren’t that ticklish. Klaus, on the other hand, was squirming around so much that Luther almost lost his grip on him. 

“OKAHAHAHAY, THAHAHAHAT’S ENOUGH, TIE BREAKER!” Everyone backed off the two and cuddled to discuss what the tie breaker should be. Once they returned Ben started in a very loud and quite obnoxious voice,

“Since it is 3-3 we have decided that the tie breaker shall be, wait for it, the knees! Bum bum bum!” Five’s face just drained of all color, he knew he could barely take someone barely touching his knees, but two people? He would absolutely going to die. Everyone just cooed and/or laughed at him.

“Aw, what’s wrong Five? Is the little baby just too tickwish on his knees?” Diego teased, a fake pout ever so present on his face. Five merely mumbled something that sounded awfully close to, “fucker, teasing me.” Klaus, just happily layed down and got comfortable, wearing a cocky smirk throughout the process. He knew he had it in the bag, his knees were about as ticklish as Five’s feet. Five begrudingly laid down, mumbling about how this was, “biased as fuck,” and that they were “setting him up to ‘win.’” Luther counted down for the final time and the tickling began. Five immediately began to fail like mad. His laughter had gone up about three octaves and was so loud they were sure the neighbors were going to call the cops. On top of all that he was making every noise in the book, squeak, squeal, hiccup, snort, you name it, he was doing it. Everyone thought it was so adorable that they abandoned Klaus (who was barely giggling, and kind of twitching) to go help tickle Klaus. As soon as Klaus got the ghost feelings out of his feet (which were still there, that’s how tickling Klaus’ feet are) he went over to help as well. Five was silently laughing in a matter of seconds. Two people were bad enough, but five people! He couldn’t take it. Five was desperately trying to get words to form in his mouth, but he couldn’t it was impossible to make a word, much less a sentence. Thankfully after about half a minute of this new form of torture they all stopped and got off of Five. Diego swooped into the protective brother roll, 

“You okay bud? Did we take it too far?” Diego started to gently massage Five’s shoulders after he stopped the heavy breathing causing little giggles to fall out of his mouth.

“Nohoho, it was okahahay.” Everyone smiled lovingly at Five for about the millionth time for that day. 

“Well I guess we know who’s more ticklish then,” Vanya said giving a little poke to Five’s side causing him to squeak.

“Yup, it’s our baby brother,” Allison teased, ghosting her fingers over Five’s neck.

“I’m ohoholder thahahan you,” Five said trying to glare, but failing miserably.

“Yeah Five’s more ticklish, but Klaus isn’t far behind,” Ben stated copying Vanya’s action onto Klaus. Klaus just weakly giggled and pawed at Ben’s hand.

“Alright, I think they’ve had enough for today and we’re running out of food. I’m gonna go to the store. Anyone wanna come with?” Luther asked digging in his pocket for the care keys.

“I will, I need more mascara,” Allison volunteered.

“Yeah me too, but I’m coming to make sure you,” Vanya said playfullying waving a finger at Luther, “Don’t forget anything like you do every time.” 

“Good idea.” The three of them got up waving a quick goodbye to the remaining four. Diego started to stand up when Klaus stopped him, his face bright red

“Um D-diego, c-could you maybe ti-tickle me a little more?” Diego didn’t even need to think about it he immediately pounced on Klaus going straight for his neck. Klaus was in hysterics in seconds. Five stared longingly at Klaus and Diego, his bottom out in a pout. This didn’t go unnoticed by Ben. 

“Five, do you want me to tickle you some more?” Ben asked. Five nodded, his face redder than Klaus’ was,

“Y-yes please.”

“I’d be happy to, where? Knees?”

“N-no I c-can’t take an-anymore of th-that tonight, m-maybe my sides?” Ben just nodded and pulled Five so close to him he was practically in his lap. Ben went from lightly tracing patterns making Five squirm around and giggle to digging into his sides, making him thrash around and belly laugh. Klaus was having just as much fun with Diego. Diego had slipped his hands under Klaus’ shirt and into the hollows of his arms. Klaus had shot his arms down as soon as this happened trapping Diego’s hands.

“DIEEEGOHOHO, NAHAHAHA, STOHOHOP.”

“Well I would bud, but you have trapped my hands under your arms, they’re stuck.” Klaus couldn’t even respond to the teasing, he had gone into silent laughter. Diego started to retract his hands when he heard Five shriek. Ben had lifted up his shirt and started blowing raspberry after raspberry into his stomach

“BEHEHEN NOHOHO, I CAHAHAN’T TAAAAAAKE IIIIIIT.” Ben just laughed into Five stomach and blew another raspberry making Five pound his fists into the couch. Diego looked over at Klaus evilly.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Klaus said trying to sound serious but failing horribly.

“But it looks so fun,” Diego said, slowly coming towards Klaus. Klaus got up and ran up the stairs, Diego hot on his heels. Ben and Five shortly thereafter heard a thud followed by Klaus’ shrieking.

“I guess Diego caught him,” Ben said removing his hands from Five’s torso.

“Yeah, I’m sure Klaus doesn’t mind that much, I know I didn’t,” Five replied his face a dark shade of red, “Hey, and thanks for doing that for me.”

“It was my pleasure,” Ben said gently squeezing Five’s knee making Five laugh.

“Nohoho, you said yohohou wohohouldn’t.”

“When?”

“I dohohon’t knohohow.”

“Exactly, I didn’t.” For the next half an hour, the Hargreeve household was filled with loud, happy, boisterous laughter.

[artlessictoan]

Uhh is it possible for you to do a yodocho thing? Where yodo is kinda butch and chocho is the fem one and yodo is trying to ask her out but they keep getting interupted by like family and friends?

boy howdy is that possible nonny dear! sorry it tookso long to finish this but jfc 5000 words ofc it’s the yodocho one that ends up this long but it was an absolute blast to write so thank you for blessing me with this prompt!

(requests open)

(ao3 mirror)

---

“Maaan, haven’t been here in so long, this place looksexactly the same.”

Yodo rolled her eyes – the thing that never changed was herfriend’s reaction every time she came over to her house – but helped Chouchou bringin the many bags of luggage she’d brought with her. The woman had claimed she’dpacked light for this trip, but Yodo couldn’t imagine how she’d ever manage togo through so many outfits in just a week.

Without bothering to wait for Yodo to shed her extra layers,she bounded up the stairs, already on a bee-line to Yodo’s room.

“Oi, wait up!” She struggled with fabric, finally justthrowing it on the floor for someone else to pick up later. Or for her dad tonag her into doing it herself. Whichever came first.

By the time she caught up to Chouchou, she was almost to herroom, but had stopped at the open door to the Kazekage’s study. With the kindof brazen disrespect that he somehow managed to inspire in a lot of kids andteenagers, she waved at him and practically screamed, “Hey Uncle Gaara, thanksfor having me!”

He nodded and gave a brief smile – the only kind he wasreally capable of, but no one thought less of him for it. “Of course, it’salways a pleasure to see you.”

They passed by his office and got almost three feet beforehe poked his head around the door and called after them, “Do you want me tobring you anything?”

“No thanks papa, we had lunch before we got home.”

Despite her words, he trailed after them, with the kind ofslightly anxious twitchiness he always had whenever a guest came over. “Are yousure?” he asked, respectfully staying in the hallway when they got to Yodo’sroom. “You don’t want anything to drink at least? I can-”

“We’re fine, just call us when dinner’s ready,” shesaid, shutting the door before he could continue pestering them.

Leaning against it until she was happy that he had walkedback to his study, she let out a sigh before turning around. Chouchou hadalready made herself at home, flopping down on Yodo’s bed face-first, her luggagedropped carelessly on the floor.

She elected to leave it there – she didn’t like tidying upher own shit, she wasn’t about to start doing it for someone else’s – andinstead took a flying leap on top of her friend.

Chouchou grunted, but didn’t scream, which was a littledisappointing.

“Ugh, knew something like that was coming, you’re such achild,” she said, twisting her head enough to glance up at the weight attachedto her back.

Yodo snorted, but shifted so that she was just leaningagainst her. “You love it,” she mumbled, seeing if she could rest her headagainst her friend’s back in such a way that she could hear her heartbeat. Shehad to wonder if her closeness would be appreciated if Chouchou knew about thereal depth of her feelings towards her.

It was weird, they’d been best friends since the moment themet, they roughhoused all the time, Chouchou had never been shy about pokingand prodding and tickling whenever Yodo let her guard down and none of that hadever bothered her before – well, except the tickling. That was just cruel – butthen she hit eighteen and realised that holy shit Chouchou was smokin’ hotand she was suddenly beset by feelings that she had not been prepared for inthe slightest. They had turned what would once have been a friendly,comfortable interaction into something at once exhilarating and filled with anunexplainable tension.

The gentle tapping immediately derailed her train ofthought. She leapt to her feet before she could be accused of something.

Gaara’s head appeared around the door, a tray hoveringbeneath it. “Here, I’ve brought you some tea.”

“I said we didn’t need anything!”

If he noticed her suspiciously loud voice, he didn’t mentionit, instead just calmly saying, “Well, I still thought I should make yousomething, just in case,” as the tray floated into the room, supported by a platformof sand.

She groaned, long and loud, until it was carefully set down.“Ok, fine, can you go away now?” Because she was embarrassed enough around Chouchouwithout adding parental interference into the mix.

Her father levelled her with a heavy stare.

“…Thank you for the tea,” she muttered, trying to sound moredefiant than she really felt.

He smiled in that way that always managed to make her feelbetter, no matter how annoying he could sometimes be. “You’re welcome.”

The door clicked shut, leaving the two girls alone oncemore.

Chouchou immediately began snickering, as she grabbed a cup.“Chill, girl, what’re you acting so weird for? I don’t mind Uncle Gaara hangingaround.”

She puffed her cheeks out, before stalking over to the bedand sitting heavily next to her. “He still treats me like a little kid, eventhough I’m legally an adult now!” Maybe if she wasn’t pouting, her words wouldn’thave had her friend snorting unashamedly.

“Well, to be fair, you can be pretty immature,” she eventuallymanaged to say, easily dodging the fist swung at her head, “but, you’ve grownup a lot these past few years, I’m so proud of you.”

“You’re the worst, you know that?”

For a moment, something in Chouchou’s eyes changed, a flashof emotion too fleeting to pin down, leaving Yodo all the more unsteady for it.Before she could question what was wrong though, a sly little smirk spreadacross purple-painted lips. “Is that what you really think?” she asked,voice suddenly low and husky and if she didn’t know better, she might call it seductive– that was certainly the effect it was having on her.

She might’ve been able to make a snappy retort, except Chouchouhad chosen this exact moment to cross her legs, causing her skirt toriiide up, exposing juuust enough gloriously muscled thigh to shut down everyone of her higher functions.

She didn’t even notice the door opening again, until a softvoice directly behind her blew away the fog in her brain.

“Kankuro made some snacks earlier, I forgot to bring them upwith the-”

Her neck cracked at the speed with which she spun around. “DAD!”

“Yes?”

The grin stretching across her face felt like it was goingto tear her face apart, even her dad looked a little uncomfortable at seeingit. “Thank. You. Now please leave us alone.”

He quickly dropped the plate in his hands next to the tea he’dbrought up earlier, then extracted himself from the room. She listened out forhis footsteps to completely disappear, taking the opportunity to catch herbreath and try to calm down her short-circuiting brain, before finally turningback around, to face Chouchou’s perfect legs and devastating smirk.

How had she been so oblivious to Chouchou’s beauty for somany years?

“You know, you didn’t answer my question,” she said, in thatvoice that left warm trails dancing across her entire body, “am I really theworst?”

“N-no, ‘course not.” Wow, suddenly she couldn’t be more thankfulthat her dad had brought up tea, because her mouth had never been so drybefore. Hands shaking just slightly, she poured herself a cup and downed half ofit. “I was just jokin’ around.”

Her eyes were still fixed on the delicious expanse ofexposed skin however.

Chouchou followed her gaze with sharp, amber eyes, grinwidening when she glanced back up. “Yodo~ where are you looking that’s so interesting?”

“Nowhere!”

She then had the absolute gall to lean forward,framing her chest between her arms. “Oh? You don’t see anything you like?”

This… was too much, even for a joke. Chouchou’s actions werefar too deliberate to be unintentional and too extreme to be a prank – Yodo wasthe one with the mean streak and even she wouldn’t mess with someone’s feelingslike this – was it possible that her best friend’s feelings weren’t entirelyplatonic either?

“Do- do you-” was she actually thinking this? Was sheactually going to ask something so dangerous? There must be somethingvery, very wrong with her. “Do you, maybe, li-”

“Chouchou, is there anything you would like to have fordinner?”

“FUUU-”

“Yodo. Language.”

“-UUUG! I was gonna say fug.”

The look on Gaara’s face suggested that he didn’t believeher for a second, but he let it slide and turned once more to their guest.“Well, Chouchou? You can ask for anything you like.”

Yodo silently fumed as her friend lit up and began mullingover her options. Was he doing this on purpose? He had to be, surely, how elsecould he have such perfectly terrible timing. And Chouchou’s dark, alluring airhad evaporated, leaving behind her usual cheerful self and leaving Yodo towonder if she’d somehow slipped into a dream back there and had just beenbrought crashing back into reality by her dad’s determination to be a goodhost.

And she wasn’t sure if she should be enraged, or grateful.

Eventually, after much thought, Chouchou settled on a porkstew and Gaara was sent away to buy the necessary ingredients. And now that hewas finally out of the picture for at least thirty minutes, Yodo could finallyconfess in peace.

Just as she was taking a slow, steadying breath however,Chouchou opened her own mouth. “So anyways, what was it you were gonna ask?”she asked, chipper and completely innocent, as though the last five minuteshadn’t even happened.

With her cheeks flaming, Yodo stomped over to the plate of snacksand tried to swallow four at once. “Forget it!” she snapped through hermouthful. “The moment’s gone forever.”

A fine, red eyebrow raised, but Chouchou didn’t question heron it, just grabbed some nibbles for herself before they were completely demolished.“Ok then, so what do you wanna talk about? Been on any cool missions lately?”

She took the change of topic with both hands and ran withit, immediately rambling on about how her brothers had nearly ruined their lastdisaster aid assignment.

But an idea had been planted and she wasn’t going to let itgo so easily.

---

Ok, today, she was going to say it. She had a plan, she hada good feeling, this time would be the one.

She had already dragged Chouchou out with her to one of thefew parts of the city with some real greenery – though not her own garden,despite it being prettier, she’d had enough trouble with her dad yesterday; noway was she going through that again – she had spent half the nightlying away coming up with a perfect script and she had buttered Chouchou upwith this morning’s breakfast – she’d gotten up super early just to make atraditional Sunan spread, with a wide range of homemade breads, jams, cheeses,fruits, eggs and soup.

Suna folk did nothing by halves.

And she wasn’t gonna half-ass her confession either.

“It’s really cool you still get so many plants this time ofyear.” Chouchou was idly sniffing at some flowering cacti, her long, brightyellow dress making her stand out, even amongst the colourful flowers. Thelocation was a success, now it was for the important bit.

“Thought you might like it,” she said, waiting until herfriend was fully focused on her before continuing. “Hey, so, there’s somethingI’ve been wanting to talk to you about, something really important-” she hadn’teven got to the scary part and yet she could still feel the sweatrolling down the back of her neck “-see, a couple months ago something changed,I don’t really get it at all, but I-I, I mean you’re- that dress- hey, are youeven listening to me?”

She had to ask, because for the last twenty seconds,Chouchou’s gaze had been very much not on her, instead fixed on a point justabove her shoulder.

It was probably for the best; “I mean you’re that dress,”wasn’t a line likely to win anyone’s heart any time soon, but she how could shebe so distracted when she had put so much effort into making this perfect?

“Uh… why is your brother hiding in the bushes?”

“…What.”

Yodo spun around to glare in the direction that had socaptivated Chouchou’s attention and, indeed Shinki was lurking in theshadows; managing to look even creepier than usual. She tried to radiate asmuch ‘go away now’ energy as possible with her facial expression alone, but heremained unimpressed and unmoving.

She decided to barrel on past it. Sure, maybe her idealconfession scenario wouldn’t involve a family member ominously watching in thedistance, but as long as he stayed far away, he couldn’t possibly ruinanything. “Oooookaaaay, well, as I was saying-”

But her friend didn’t seem to hear her. Chouchou’s gaze wasutterly transfixed, she didn’t even seem able to blink. “…Now he’s giving me athumbs up.”

Right, this conversation could wait, she had a fratricide togo commit.

---

Kankuro’s snickering was a level of obnoxious that she’dnever experienced before.

“C’mon kid, it can’t be that difficult.”

She lifted her head enough to glower at him, then dropped itheavily back against the kitchen table. “You’re one to talk, have you ever eventried to ask someone out?”

He rolled his eyes. “You know I ain’t interested in thatshit, but I’m still better at flirting than you.”

As much as she’d like to disagree with him, she knew he waskind of right. Even if he wasn’t that invested, she had seen him do his thingat enough – otherwise dull – political events, to know that he was more than capableof finding hook-ups. Somehow. She still didn’t understand the appeal at all,but the fact that the only person she’d ever crushed on was a girl maybe explainedit.

She still had her pride to uphold however.

“Fuck off, I’m amazing at flirting!” She smirked whenshe heard the feet bouncing down the stairs, pushing herself out of her seatand slamming both hands down on the table with enough force to rattle the cupson it. “You’ll see, Chouchou’s on her way down and I’m gonna get her to go outwith me, right here, right now!”

Kankuro leaned forwards until their noses were nearlytouching, a wide, sinister grin exposing far too many of his teeth. “Do it then.”

“I. Will.”

Suddenly, Chouchou swept past them, mumbling a low, “Mornin’,”as she opened the fridge and began rooting around in it like she owned theplace. If she had noticed the weird staring contest between uncle and niece throughher grogginess, she had elected not to say anything.

Clearly she had just come from washing up; her hair was slightlydamp and messy curls had yet to be tamed, she hadn’t put on any makeup and she’dthrown on a robe without much thought.

Yodo had never been more attracted to anyone in her entirelife.

“Mornin’.” She glanced over to where Kankuro was waggling hiseyebrows at her, wordlessly daring her to prove him wrong. “Sooo… you got anyplans for today?” she asked, very distracted by the sweet, fruity scent waftingoff of her – a Konoha perfume most likely, Suna ones were generally muskier, withhints of the many spices grown in the region.

Chouchou blinked at her a few times as she took a slow sip ofjuice. “Girl, I’m here to see you, my plans are gonna be the same as yours.”

Out of the corner of her eyes, Yodo could see her uncle withholdinglaughter. She tried to ignore the blush creeping up her neck. “Right, right, duh,must still be half asleep,” she muttered, wonky smile forced upon her lips.

Her attempt at playing it off with a laugh was immediately ruinedby Kankuro blurting out, “You’ve been awake for an hour and a half already.”

She glared at him. He grinned at her.

He was gonna play dirty then, huh? Fine by her, she’d just haveto bring out the big guns, something so irresistible that Chouchou would practicallyfall into her arms before her uncle could ruin it. “So, you… dress good, huh?”

Every eye in the room dropped down to the decidedlyun-glamourous fluffy bathrobe she’d had to borrow from Araya – because Yodostill had to shop in the children’s section to find clothes that didn’tcompletely swamp her and Chouchou was over six foot of pure Woman.

It had a cute little duckling pattern on it.

The dam of Kankuro’s not-very-high restraint finally brokeand he started howling with laughter. “Woooow, smooth!”

“I know right? I’m amazed at how she manages to function ineveryday life,” Chouchou said, not bothering to hide her own amusement as shestarted sharing the story of that time a few years back that Yodo had beentrying so hard to forget about.

Entire body flaming red, she practically leapt out of theroom, yelling behind her as she stormed up the stairs, “You’re both jerks and Ihate you!”

---

She wasn’t sure why Araya had insisted on joining themtoday, they were just doing a little souvenir shopping for Chouchou’s friendsand family back home, hardly something he hadn’t seen before.

Though his presence was at least keeping her somewhatfocused on their task, rather than on how lovely Chouchou looked in that brightblue dress; which was very. Very, very lovely. So lovely that shedesperately wanted to remove it to see how much lovelier she looked underneath.

If this was what being in love felt like, she wondered how humansas a species had ever lasted this long.

Araya casually asked who they were shopping for first,immediately reminding her that she was in public and should really get her mindout of the gutter before she did or said something that would get them thrownout of the market and probably earn them a lecture on the importance ofrepresenting a village from the Kazekage.

To distract herself from her thoughts, she picked up alittle clay figurine, some kind of lion thing. “Inojin would probably like this,right?” It wasn’t exactly like his ink beasts, but it was close enough; he couldprobably do with some new ideas anyways.

Before she got any response from the one she’d actually beenasking however, Araya had leapt upon her, taking the object reverently in hishands and waved it in front of Chouchou’s eyes. “Wow, he’d love it! You’re sogood at this Yodo! Isn’t she amazing?” The smile hidden by his mask wasdefinitely made up for by the pure excitement in his voice.

“Hmm, I guess she’s pretty good, dunno that I’d go as far asamazing though.” Chouchou still took the lion though and wandered over to the stall’sowner to haggle.

Yodo took the opportunity to scrutinise her brother. “What’swith you today?”

“Nothing, at all,” he said, utterly failing to sound like hewasn’t lying – he’d never been very good at it in the first place.

“Mhmm.”

“Really, there’s absolutely nothing going on. C’mon, it lookslike she’s done, let’s go to a food stall next!” Quickly running off to grabChouchou’s hand, he dragged them both off.

And things continued being weird throughout the day; as theybrowsed the market for interesting trinkets and regional delicacies to sendback to Konoha, Araya took every opportunity – and several opportunities thatdidn’t actually exist – to praise Yodo to the high heavens, no matter howtrivial her actions. She normally wouldn’t mind, her ego was big enough that itcould take a little stroking every now and then, but everything about him todaywas just screaming ulterior motive and that could only mean bad thingsfor her.

Araya with a Plot was not someone to mess with and she wasfeeling very twitchy as a result.

So twitchy, that when she heard the slight hitch of breathbehind her, she immediately spun and caught the heavy weight that wasthreatening to fall on her.

It must’ve looked ridiculous, a six-foot-something giant,who was eighty percent leg, being held like a princess by a scrawny, five-foot-on-a-good-dayrunt.

Araya looked up at her and threw his arms around her neck.

“Oh, Yodo, my hero!” He was practically weeping now,catching the attention of more than a few passers-by. “Thank you so much, whoknows what would’ve happened if you hadn’t been here to catch me in yoursurprisingly strong arms! I’m sure you would be an amazing catch for anyone!”

She closed her eyes and counted to ten before dropping hisweight and letting him fall the whole five inches to the ground with a lightthud. Everyone around them looked either confused or amused, as she bent down,grabbed her brother’s ankles and wordlessly dragged him into the nearest dark,abandoned alleyway.

When they were sufficiently alone, she leaned over to glareat where his eyes should be; she might not be able to see his face through themask, but he could certainly see hers. And hopefully he would be rightfullyscared of it. “Ok, seriously, what the fuck.”

“I’m just trying to get Chouchou to see how cool you are, soshe’ll want to go out with you!” he said, arms gesticulating wildly, even as hewas lying on his back.

“What’s that got to do with you? I can take care of thismyself.”

He sighed and slowly pushed himself so he was sittingupright. “Look, I support you one hundred percent in everything – you’re thebest sister in the world – but you’re definitely going to screw this up if weleave you to your own devices, so we all agreed that you needed a hand toactually make this happen.”

“I’d be doing just fine if people didn’t keep distracting me-”she stopped, suddenly thinking back to everything that had happened the lastweek “-wait, we? You’re all in on this?”

“Well, Uncle was mostly just being himself and Dad was justgoing along with what Kankuro told him to do, but me and Shinki at least have yourbest interests at heart! He just thought it might be better to quietly supportyou from the sidelines while I think the more… direct approach would be better.”

Even if she’d wanted to respond to that, she couldn’t findthe words, so she just spun round and stomped out into the street whereChouchou was still waiting for them. “You guys done?”

“Yeah, let’s go.”

The peace lasted for all of five steps before Araya joggedup behind them and leaned down to whisper in Chouchou’s ear. “Yodo’s great, don’tyou think?”

“I can hear you and I don’t need your help,” she ground out,teeth practically cracking with the force of her strained grin. Was he reallyplanning to follow them around until she finally confessed? Sure, she hadn’tsucceeded so far, but she was just waiting for the right time!

She couldn’t see Araya’s expression behind the mask, but sheknew she didn’t like it. “Are you sure about that?”

“Chouchou, let’s go look over there.” Grabbing her friend’shand – and definitely not feeling a little giddy about it – she led her to aclothing stall, already eyeing up a beautiful, deep, ocean blue and gold scarfthat would look amazing against Chouchou’s dark skin.

Araya remained undeterred. “I know she can be very dense,and stubborn, and she’s pretty lazy and her dress sense is… distinctive-”

“This is what you call helping?” she snapped, bristlingat his tone of refined disdain.

Just because he didn’t appreciate her butch, punk fashionchoices, didn’t mean that she was a bad dresser. She was at least above herfather and uncle in the family style rankings. Which was a real thing; Shinki kepta constantly updated list in his desk.

“-but she has somegood qualities too! She’s fun cool and she always loyal to her friends andfamily, I bet she’d be a really great girlfrie-”

As much as she would love to just throttle him right now,she settled for grabbing his shoulders – mostly because she couldn’t actuallyreach his neck – and shaking vigorously until he shut up. “Go. Away. I’ve. Got.This.”

He carefully removed her hands and held them together betweenhis own. “Look you don’t have to do it yourself; it’d be less painful foreveryone if I just said it for you.”

“That ruins the whole point though!”

She could feel the Look, and she hated it. “Are you gonna doit yourself then?”

“I- wha- ye- no-” she looked around for someone to save her,unfortunately most of the civilians had grown bored of the show and returned totheir shopping, the only person still watching was Chouchou herself, gigglingsoftly, with her long hair shimmering in the sunlight. Swallowing a painfullump, she turned back to her brother, saying softly, “Look it’s hard, ok?”

“It doesn’t have to be, just be honest, I know that nothingbad will happen, trust me, you can do it, it’s really not so scary,” he said,tone gradually shifting from soft and encouraging to exasperated and critical, “I’veasked out tons of people before and I don’t get this worked up about it, reallyI thought you were the brave one-”

“God! Fine!” She spun round, pointed directly at her crushand yelled at the top of her voice, “CHOUCHOU YOU LOOK GREAT IN THAT DRESS BUT IT’DLOOK BETTER ON MY BEDROOM FLOOR! Are you happy now?!”

Chouchou stared at her, completely still for a second, then burstout laughing.

Loud, unashamed guffaws probably weren’t the ideal reactionto a pick-up line, but, listening back to her own words in her head, she couldunderstand how they’d gotten there. Still didn’t mean she couldn’t be offendedby it though.

“Hey, quit laughing! I’m tryna be serious here!”

Araya crossed his arms, shaking his head slowly, clearly notfar off of laughing himself. “And that’s the line you chose to be serious with?”

“Ok, you shut up you’re no help at all,” she said, elbowinghim in the stomach before snapping back to her friend, “and Chouchou stoplaughing at a girl when she’s bearing her soul! Can’t even get some respectwhile confessing, honestly…”

Slowly, Chouchou straightened up, wiping a tear from her eyeand pure delight still lighting her voice as she asked, “Yodo, are you sayingthat you like me?”

Fuck, how red was she right now? Had to be pretty bad if theburning of her skin was anything to go by – even the midday Suna sun felt coolby comparison. “Y-yeah, obviously,” she muttered, suddenly all too aware of howmany eyes were upon them again.

“Finally!”

She blinked expressionlessly at Chouchou. “Huh?”

“Girl, I’ve been trying to get you to admit you like me for months,I really thought I had a winner with that ridiculous seduction act when I firstgot here.”

“If you knew then why didn’t you just say something!” shespluttered, defaulting to her usual anger while she was waiting for the joy tokick in.

Amber eyes rolled, but she was still grinning widely. “I’vebeen in love with you since we were kids, I figured I’d let you stew for atleast a little while, get some revenge for you being an oblivious idiot.”Chouchou had liked her for that long? How had she not noticed?

More importantly, however. “Wait, so are we, like… datingnow?”

Closing the distance between them and leaning down, Chouchoustared deep into her eyes, mouth set in a hard line and brows furrowed heavily.“If you say you don’t want to after all this, I will literally throw you intothe middle of a sandstorm,” she said, before her warm smile returned and she lightlypecked her on the cheek.

“Ha, I win!” Araya immediately managed to ruin the momentwith his loud declaration.

Kankuro landed next to them with a thud; Yodo didn’t evensee where he came from. “I call foul! We never agreed that you could get sopersonally involved!”

Family members began appearing out of the aether, until theywere surrounded by her brothers, father and uncle. Her blood pressure shortthrough the roof.

“Exact terms were never agreed upon, it’s your fault forbeing so vague, so you have to pay up.”

Yodo felt all feeling drain from her body. “…Were you allbetting on this?” she asked, voice soft and chilling.

The sudden silence could’ve been cut with a rusty butterknife, it was so thick.

Araya was the first to attempt a response. “N-noooo,definitely not!”

“You just said that you won!”

“Which I’m still not accepting, by the way,” Kankuro cut in,earning twin glares from Yodo and Araya both.

“Ok I’m not surprised by you three-” she glared at her brothersand uncle, who looked varying shades of ‘not especially guilty’ “-but even youwere in on it, papa?” Yes, she was bringing out the big, watery, puppy-dog eyesand no, she didn’t feel bad about it.

“Kankuro said he had a plan to make you very happy and Ididn’t think to question him on it, I can only apologise.”

“My baby bro is a snitch! How could I let this happen, I’vefailed you, my brother…” Kankuro wailed, as though he wasn’t the main bad guyhere; Yodo had absolutely no doubt the whole bet was his idea and she would notbe letting it go unpunished. Though her dad’s look suggested that he wasdefinitely going to be dragging him off later to have a Chat with him first.

A heavy arm dropped across her shoulders and long hairtickled at her cheek as Chouchou leaned down to snicker in her ear. “Yourfamily’s hilarious, I love it.”

She basked in the casual touch of skin against skin anddecided that – if this was the reward – she would happily deal with a thousandmeddling families. “You guys are lucky my girlfriend likes you, else you’d all bedead to me!”

Didn’t have to let them have the satisfaction of knowingthat though.

---

#ictoan writes #yodocho #yodo #chocho akimichi #boruto #naruto #ictoan answers #gOD i've missed sand fam nonsense! #also yodocho nonsense #also sorry this took me so long to write but as you can see.. it big #head down eyes shut no proof reading you can't lose #and hey look i managed to not lose the ask this time too! #what a time to be alive #Anonymous

[pallasperilous]

Morning Glory

Rating: Gen/Teen Word Count: 1795, complete Pairing: Dean/Castiel Tags: Temporarily Human Castiel, Canon universe, anxiety, insomnia, sleep disorders, angel vessels, references to the Empty, references to alcohol abuse AO3 version: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18163709 Prompt: Written as a lil clapback to the fanon trope that Human!Castiel Is Not A Morning Person. (For @cr-noble-writes and @chuckwinchester)

Dean couldn’t really explain why he’d assumed Cas would suck at mornings. Maybe the 24/7 bedhead and the “it’s always 5 o’clock somewhere” shadow; maybe the fact he never really seemed convinced that “taking a shower” and “eating breakfast” weren’t just some elaborate long con they’ve been pulling on him for the last half a goddamn decade. Maybe just the way he veers into grouchy asshole territory whenever the world takes a dump on his shoes, which is kind of the definition of mornings. 

Whatever: Cas just seems like the kind of guy who’d need forty minutes of silence and three cups of coffee before he’d count as human.

Hey, well, joke’s on Dean, ‘cuz the guy definitely (currently) counts as human, and he’s awake at five fucking thirty in the morning, every morning, bright-tailed and bushy-eyed and talking a mile a minute. A mile a second. He’s breaking the sound barrier and exerting serious G-forces. 

Dean would tear his own face off if he thought it’d make the dude shut up until the Pop-Tarts came up. Instead he just kinda lets the Cas Chatter wash over him, like really phlegmy birdsong, or the world’s weirdest morning chit chat show.  

Cas has at least taught himself to make coffee –– apparently all on his own, since Sam isn’t taking credit for it, and Sam loves taking credit for shit. It’s not the worst coffee, either. I mean, it’s bad coffee, nobody here is drinking Good Coffee, it’s a weapon, not an experience –– but it’s not watery or full of grounds or made with orange juice or some other weird dumbass goof. 

Sam’s take is that maybe Jimmy Novak was a Morning Person and now that Cas isn’t using the guy’s body as a kind of celestial thermos, some of the dude’s original behaviors or genetics or whatever are sort of…coming back online, reasserting themselves. “Like the burger thing,” Sam says, shrugging.

“Well, that’s ten kinds of fucked up,” Dean answers, but then the goddamn ghoul turns out to be a whole Leave It To Beaver nuclear ghoul family and the conversation gets extremely tabled.

There’s a morning awhile after where Dean wakes up still drunk and can’t handle the thought of two more hours riding the motel bed over the rolling seas of FuckUpistan, so he gets up and showers off the townie bar fug as best he can without waking Sam – only Sam, because it’s dawn and so Cas is already up and probably singing Disney princess songs to the seagulls haunting the trashcans in the parking lot. 

Dean reaches to scoop his keys and does a bleary double take when they’re not on the nightstand. He takes a moment to freak out at the possibility of Cas doing his clutch-smiting routine on the Impala, but something twigs and he peels open the door and yep, the car’s still in the lot, outlined in scribbly motel neon and highway dawn pink. There’s a faint warble of bass rolling off it in time tooooo…Dean’s gonna say Hole in the Sky? So he kinda queases his way over the lumpy asphalt and knuckles on the driver side window and Cas jumps a fucking foot, or he would if he weren’t wearing the goddamn lap belt in a perfectly stationary car.

Dean thumbs at the other side and Cas shakes himself off enough to lean over and pop it for him. Dean slides in and the car smells like three hour-old motel check-in desk coffee – his stomach immediately tries to file a lawsuit but the sanctity of the leather interior wins over his bodily need to evacuate poisons every time. Cas’s hands are back on the steering wheel, gripping it at 10 and 2 like a good boy but with his knuckles the color of popcorn, an abused-looking paper cup empty on the seat besides him, and Sabbath is still living on the profits of pride at top volume. Dean rolls it down to conversational levels so he doesn’t have to scream when he says “What’s the story, morning glory?”

Reminder: Dean is definitely still drunk.

Thankfully Cas doesn’t really know from Oasis or Sunday morning BJs so Dean just gets two blue eyeballs full of blank terror. 

Dean tries again, picks the cup up off the seat. There’s a rind of dried coffee juice inside. “What’s up? Sunrise three minutes off? Songbirds outta order? Thought you’d be out here braiding your hair and frolicking in the dew or some shit.” 

Cas blinks, which is something he’s been doing a lot more lately and frankly is a weird look for him. “No,” he says, voice cracking. “I haven’t done any of those things this morning.” He frowns, which is a little better. “Or any morning, to my knowledge.”

“So, what then? Bad dreams?” 

Cas scrunches his face up in his left hand, pulls it back through his already frankly insane hair, sighs out a gust of Eau de Flopsweat. “No. I didn’t dream at all.”

“Congrats.”

Cas goggles back at him. “As much as I dislike dreaming as a…subject, instead of an observer. I find its absence.” He hesitates. “Much worse.”

Dean rubs his eyes because this has that angsty metaphysical angel pong to it and that’s really more of a Sam Specialty. “How’s it worse? I drink for those nights, man. It’s a few hours off of. You know.” He gestures at The Universe, Generally. “All this shit.”

Cas scoffs and leans back in the seat, although he doesn’t release the wheel from the iron grip. “Dean, in almost four billion years of existence –”

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Dean mutters, because this is the traditional overture to an absolute diarrhea of angelsplaining.

Cas ignores him, or maybe Sabbath covers his tracks – “I have never been rendered…unconscious.”

Dean gives him a look, because bullshit. “C’mon. I’ve seen you knocked out before. Down for the count.”

Cas shakes his head. “I’ve been forced to cede control over my vessel. I’ve withdrawn into it to preserve myelf. I’ve experienced a fugue state, or been made to retroactively forget details of my experience. But I have never.” He breathes in through his nose, the edges of his nostrils going white to match his knuckles. “I’ve never been insensate and unaware at the same time.”

Some asshat pulling his rig out of the diner across the way opens up his jake brake and Cas flinches at the crack. 

“Huh,” is about what Dean’s got to serve up. “You worried somebody’s gonna snuff you while you’re down? We can take shifts when we’re on the road, if that’s what’s freakin’ you out.”

Another shake of the head. “Anyone truly invested in eliminating me specifically in this…state would be too powerful or competent to be defended against through normal means. Angels can be killed, Dean. My experience of a mortal death would be – ” he cuts himself off. “Less worrisome than the alternative, in many ways.”

“Cool, so, being murdered in your sleep, not a concern.”

“I’m more concerned,” Cas huffs, “that I am unable to defend you.” His forehead droops down towards the steering wheel, like a houseplant somebody forgot to water before a Disneyland vacation.

“Are you fucking kidding me,” Dean says.

“I am not,” Cas answers, “fucking kidding you.”

Dean snorts. “I made it thirty years without your feathery ass watching over me. Now you’ve just got a normal-ass…ass, you think I’m suddenly shaking in my boots? C’mon, man.”

Cas shrugs, which looks even weirder on him than the blinking.

Dean twiddles the paper cup, rolls it between his palms. “You haven’t been, like, watching me and Sam sleep, have you? Because you know I can stand that Twilight shit.”

“No,” Cas says, in a tone of infinite offense, like Dean has suggested he sleeps in girls underwear or something. “But, Dean. The experience of sleep. Dreamless sleep. It’s not. It’s not dissimilar to what we are told to expect, as angels, after death.”

(The music slides over into Symptom of the Universe and Dean desperately wishes he’d left something peppier in the deck when they pulled in last night.)

 “Only I’m given to understand that we are at least…in company with each other. Though silent and unaware. We share the same sleep. In a way it’s a return to our origin as an undifferentiated host. But in human sleep.” He looks over at Dean, face slack. “You’re alone. Prisoner in a corporeal cell. Did you know,” he goes on, practically stepping on himself, warming up the verbal jet engines, “that some individuals experience a phenomenon where, upon waking, they suffer a period of total bodily paralysis?” 

Dean frowns. “Yeah. Sounds shitty.”

Cas nods. “Jimmy experienced it semi-regularly.” Then he looks out and up, squints at the motel sign. Maybe he needs glasses.

“So you inherited it, huh?” Dean says, softly. Cas doesn’t respond. “So, sleeping’s shit. And waking up’s shit.”

Cas’s squint turns into a wince. “In the Bunker, I’ll get up and make coffee.”

Dean waggles the mutilated cup. “Yeah, noticed that. Thinking of buying stock in Folger’s.”

“I’ll visit the archives, or. Write letters.” (Who the fuck is he writing letters to, Dean idly wonders? Dear Angel Abby?) “Go up to the roof to,” he glances at Dean, anticipating the eyeroll, “watch the dawn. On the road, it’s…more difficult to keep myself occupied. Keep my mind off of the fact that I can no longer hear the rest of the host. That I am,” he stretches his palms out over the wheel, tenses his clenched fingers, “quite nearly useless,”

“Cas,” Dean says, even more softly.

“And that, in a mere matter of hours,” Castiel closes his eyes, or the eyes he is currently doing business under. “The cycle will repeat.”

“Cas,” Dean says. And he reaches out what he suspects is the memory of Mom’s hand and sets his palm on the back of the guy’s neck, against the damp skin and unwashed hair. The muscles there relax but the blue eyes stay closed and Dean drops the cup on the floor and sets the other hand that’s just his on the side of Cas’s face, and slowly sweeps the side of his thumb over the sandpaper jaw and waxy cheekbone. 

And he pulls Cas’s head towards him, then down against his own shoulder and chest. Cas’s hands peel off the steering wheel and drift to lie, palms open, up, across their undistinguished assortment of kneecaps and thighs.

After awhile, a few more tracks in the tape, Cas’s breathing goes smoothe and deep. Dean feels eyelashes flicker against his collarbone – guy’s already dreaming.

Dean watches the dawn, reflected on motel windows.  

#spn fanfic #deancas #castiel is not a morning person #pallasperilous fic #dean winchester #human!cas

[haileykitty69]

Crossover Friends: Operation Return Ladybug Earrings

"look at this guys! we got an anonymous email about a ring and earrings that gives you powers! they said that if we give them the ring and earrings, they will give us 1,000 dollars!" Dr.Cortex showed everyone the email. "1,000 dollars? I could use that to get back in Big City! I have unfinished business with that stupid kid, Cricket!" Chip said as Giffany pats his back. "you will get your revenge, Chipai. you will get your revenge." "aren't you rich already, idiot?" Lunaris smacked him over the head. "I lost everything! I only have my suit on me!" Chip grabbed a beer and drank the whole thing. "I already know, I just wanted to make you feel bad." Lunaris took the beer bottle and smash it over his head. "OW! WHAT THE FFFFFUDGE! THAT GLASS ALMOST GOT IN MY EYE!" Chip was now in Giffany's arms. "you mofo! I don't give a fug that you hate being stuck on earth, I'll kick your ass if you do that again!" Giffany carried Chip to the couch. "let's just steal the ring and earrings and sent it to the anonymous person!" Eggman shouted. "it's in Paris and that's perfect because we are hiding in Paris right now since the cops ended up involved thanks to one of the Crossover Friends." Dr.Cortex ran out the door. "we have to wear disguises, Neo!" Julius grabbed himself a bottle of wine and drank some of it. "I can't believe we're being forced to be in this group." Rob said as Julius hands him the bottle. "because of what happened, I had to leave town and join this group so my family and friends don't get killed, those bastards used my voice to tell my girlfriend that I want to break up..." "they did?!" Rob was shocked. "let's just go!" Lunaris shouted.

Marinette was on her way to her friend's place, but she saw the weirdest thing going on, she saw Julius doing the distraction dance (he was forced to do that) "wait, she's the one with those special earrings? how did we even find out that those are the earrings we need to steal?" Chip asked. "I'll get the earrings, Chipai." Giffany snapped her fingers and became invisible. "....what? is it because she's a video game character? she's able to do cheats? in real life?" Chip was surprised. Giffany came over to Marinette and took the earrings without her noticing. "okay, I'm done with this cringe!" Julius shouted as he jumped into the road where a car was moving, Julius was not ran over, he got on the other side of the car, making it look like he got ran over, Marinette thought he died but heard someone say "GET OFF MY CAR, YOU PSYCHO!" Marinette was really confused about what happened, she just didn't know what to say anymore and just kept walking. "got it." Giffany whispered into Chip's ear, she snapped her fingers to make herself visible. "now we need the ring!" Chip said. "not so fast!" Betrayus shouted. "what the hell are you two doing here?" Chip shouted. "me and my g- friend! my friend, Hailey! the demon cat. not the yellow freak. are on a trip to Paris, we saw the whole damn thing. give back the earrings!" "why do you care? you literary cased a war!" Giffany shouted. "give them back, dammit! people will think I stole it because of my past!" Betrayus ran at them and they started beating him up while he tries fighting back, Hailey heard what was happening and flew over to help Betrayus, a few hours later and Betrayus and Hailey finally got the earrings and Giffany was running with Chip in her arms. "oh crap, your tail's falling off!" Betrayus freaked out. "we have to take you back to America to have you in the life room!" Betrayus carried Hailey and took her wand to teleport back home. "Betrayus, my tail's fine, see?" Hailey's tail was still fine. "uh....frick! let's go back and give that lady her earrings back." Betrayus said before he saw what looked to be a ladybug. "Jesus Christ! where did you came from?!" Betrayus shouted. "I ain't gonna go teleporting no more!" Hailey's wand shouted. "wait, your wand talks?!" Betrayus shouted.

"Seymour! let me in!" Betrayus shouted as he threw a giant rock at the window and it broke. "Betrayus! Mother is gonna kill me because of you! what am I gonna tell her?!" Seymour shouted. "put these earrings on, they are magical and go to Paris and give the earrings back to a teenage girl named Marinette. we also have to get rid of some freaks memories, and our memories of what happened as well..." Betrayus said as he gave Seymour the earrings. "uh-" "no time to ask questions! put them on!"

"uhhh, does this outfit make me look fat?" Seymour asked. "yes! now get to Paris and return those earrings to whoever even own those! I don't want to be blamed for what those Crossover Enemies did! I already got beaten up by one of them!" Betrayus shouted. "isn't it Marinette's earrings?" "just go!"

"here's your earrings back young lady. some thieves stole them." Seymour said as he gave back the earrings to Marinette. "oh, thank you."

"how did you came back?" Betrayus asked smugly. "a plane..." Seymour said annoyed. "why did you ask?" "ah, nothing. since we also got those jerks we can get rid the memories....because reasons."

"what happened?" Chip asked. "jail, we're in jail." Julius said. "I can't remember a damn thing so what the hell?" "let's just get out of here since I'm able to teleport." Giffany said as she snapped her fingers and the Crossover Enemies teleported somewhere else.

"ugh, my head. what happened?" Seymour was in bed. "what happened to my window-" "SEYMOUR! DID YOU BREAK THAT WINDOW?!" Agnes shouted. "I'm sorry, Mother, I don't remember anything..." Seymour said nervously. "don't lie to me!" "but I'm serious, I forgot what happened." Seymour said sadly. "you're grounded, Seymour! get downstairs, I'm going to punish you!" Agnes then got out of his room and went downstairs. "it's gonna be the same punishment like the other times..." Seymour sighed as he went downstairs.

"sorry that happened to you, Seymour. I hope you're feeling alright." Leni texted to Seymour. "I'm not supposed to be on my phone right now, Leni but thanks. I really don't remember a single thing that happened. my window is fixed now though. I have to get off now. bye." Seymour texted back. he had to sleep on his stomach because of what happened.

The End.

#betrayus #the Simpsons #miraculous ladybug #crossover #I'm feeling tired after making this... #I'll put in other tags later.

[yakumtsaki]

Take your hands off me, I don't belong to you, you see, and take a look at my face for the last time, I never knew you, you never knew me, say hello.. ♪

WAVE GOODBYE. 

WHADDUP PPL. Much like Ronroneo, we’re back from the dead and ready for a whole new generation of Union fuckery. We’re also officially.. drumroll.. MIDDLE CLASS. Our shiny new house is based on this one by frottana-sims​, which I downloaded but dumbassly forgot to install, and since loading the game takes a hot half-hour I opted for this poor recreation instead. We start the extreme home makeover with an incredible budget of..

...Yea, I see the value of getting 6 pets to the top of their careers now. Included in this insane sum is the 20k+ that Wyatt and Jojo brought with them moving in, and at first I’m worried that we’re way too rich for only generation 2. Well, careful what you wish for, cause here’s our post-remodeling budget:

LMAO. It’s as if not a day has passed since Vic started this legacy with a dream in her heart and crap to her name. Let’s check out the new digs!

Everything was purple.. his pills.. his hands.. his foyer. 

As eagle-eyed readers may observe, both the hall and the living room were designed with nothing else in mind but whether they matched our cat paintings. Per legacy rules I use as little cc as possible, which isn’t that hard since I feel this bizarre, angular and hugely impractical couch really encapsulates Jojo’s essence. Like if he was a servant in Beauty and the Beast this would be his furniture form.

Apparently the only things I deemed important enough to capture were the cat portraits, so it looks like my Komeization is finally complete! Here’s some floorplan shots tho so you don’t get disoriented in our labyrinth-like mansion. Please note our amazing pink-blue-purple kitchen! Barbie’s Dreamhouse who??

And here’s the second floor, which also illustrates the exact point I ran out of money. Honestly looking back I don’t understand how the fuck this place cost 70k?? Like nothing is particularly expensive except the amazing vintage batmobile which was around 30-40k and some of the paintings? But I guess all the small things add up in the end + I’m super bad with money..

..and I’m not the only one. Jojo GET A FUCKING GRIP and A JOB. Literally no comment @ your cat wants, you inherited the jaw, wasn’t that enough??? ANYWAY. I know the question on everyone’s mind is how is Wyatt going to fit in with the Unions.. and all I have to say about that..

..is LOL. Truly the perfect career for when your mother-in-law is a criminal mastermind and your husband is a serial killer! I mean the jokes practically write themselves. At least he doesn’t want 10 kids or any shit like that, cause I’ve seen hell and it was the result of mixing Jojo/Wyatt genes in cas.

On top of gifting us with his future-probably-fug children, Wyatt also gives us the gift of our first ever kitchen fire when he decides to make dinner with 1 cooking point. His generosity really knows no bounds.

It’s all fun and games now but Wyatt deadass almost died in the inferno and was about to take poor, stupid Komei with him, who of course ran to the fire even though he was in the yard. Meanwhile Victoria was safely watching tv and didn’t move while Jojo..

..was doing this in the next room. Two types of sims I guess!

-So Wyatt, you’ve been here for almost an hour now, burned down our kitchen and I still don’t see any grandchildren. I thought you were a family sim!

-Haha oh mom, you’re hilarious! Ignore her, Wyatt, let’s enjoy your delicious pasta.. It was definitely worth almost dying for.

-Your mama is right, mon cheri, not only do you have an obligatión to your famille but I rolled the want to have a bébé the second we graduated!

-Well it’s still gonna be there when we aren’t broke, Wyatt, god!

-But.. bébés, mon cheri! Tons of bébés I can have but never interact with, in typical famille sim fashión!

-UGH thanks a lot for opening this gate, mom. If only you had found your love of children when I was living on cat food.

-Well it’s different when they are your children, everyone knows that.

-THAT’S NOT WHY PEOPLE SAY THAT MOM

-Honestly, Jojό, I’m prouder of taking down your répugnant suitόrs than I am of graduating with honors!

-Aww Wyatt <3

-And if I have to souffrir through a childless existence to be with mon amour, so be it (:

-Aw- wait what?!

-Really, c’est bien, Jojό, marriage is all about compromise, nό? I mean, not that I would know since we’re not even married yet!

-Wyatt we’ve been here for 3 hours.

-My point précisément.. C’est bien though!

-Can’t believe I’m saying this but I really regret murdering Ti-Ning. 

That makes two of us, Jo. Honestly even Francis would be better than this. Family sim spouse??? Tf was I thinking. 

Ah, some things never change <3 It’s a new day and someone very special passes by our lot..

UGH NO not you asshole, once again delivering bills at the worst possible time.

-Miss me bitch?? Lolol

ONE OF THESE DAYS DAGMAR. ONE OF THESE DAYS ISTG

No, it’s mismatched beard townie, whose regular outfit is simply iconic, and he’s waving at me! What a sweetheart! TAKE SOME NOTES DAGMAR YOU FROZEN-FACED FREAK

-Umm he’s actually waving at me, moron.

-WRONG, he’s waving at me!

Ok it literally doesn’t matter who he’s waving at. 

-Well c’est moi. 

OK WHATEVER WYATT GOD. Just go off to work in a position you’re criminally unqualified for and try not to die ok??

-Why would I mourir?

Hm let’s see, maybe because you’re a ‘SWAT Team Leader’ straight out of college with a shocking lack of skill points?? Jfc college degrees in this game are so fucking op it’s legit making me resentful of my sims.

In other news, major dicks Sophie and Victor have started constantly beating each other up and the only thing surprising about this development is that it took this long. Honestly these fights are peak #TeamNoOne. Please note Alegra who continues to give 0 fucks @ the bloodshed. What a gal <3

Burning with religious fervor, fundamentalist nutjob Sophie emerges victorious!

-I WALK WITH GOD BITCH

Tears. Literal tears. Victor is the most unbelievable creature I have ever played.

-The rampant violence in this house is a violation of human rights! I AM OUTTA HERE

Literally still cannot believe this happened, like the sheer NERVE is killing me. Victor has started every fight he’s ever been in for an astounding total of 40-50 fights, and as you all know he almost always wins. Like this one was what? The fourth one he lost?? AND YET HE RUNS AWAY LIKE HE’S THE VICTIM I HATE/LOVE HIM SO MUCH

Meanwhile this happens which, of course. Leave it to me to finally get a chance card right for the only sim who doesn’t even deserve the job he currently has.

..Police Chief Wyatt reporting for duty! And crime increased 80% overnight. 

In actual good and not lawsuit-waiting-to happen news, Wyatt brought Amanda, Vic’s only friend/lesbian crush with him! Amanda has the distinct honor of being literally the only non-Union non-Jojo person Vic has ever genuinely liked and hasn’t had an affair with. YET THAT IS.

Man, these are some fat fucking flies. I’m talking 10 plagues of Egypt teas. 

-I KNOW, where the fuck is Komei, what are we paying him for?

-I’m over here honey, talking to my least favorite son for the second time in my life, since apparently he’s sticking around.

-Yes, thanks for requesting a recount of the heir vote, dad. I will remember it when I decide where to scatter your ashes. 

-I TOLD YOU I WANT THEM MIXED WITH THE CAT LITTER 

Ugh Komei, please stop trying to bond with your son and do something productive instead-

-like finally convincing Neo to bang Sophie. She has refused 3 TIMES because there’s a rule I have to earn kittens by suffering. I mean Alegra refusing to procreate with Victor made sense, it was Victor, wtf is Sophie’s excuse? Waiting for marriage?

ABOUT TIME

YAS. CAT GEN 3 ON THE WAY. Human gen 3 will have to wait till I’m in the mood to deal with screaming infants aka it might take a while.

The science career FINALLY SHOWS UP after 5 fucking days, jfc. Love how Wyatt’s dumb ass started as a swat team LEADER but Jojo who has half the skills maxed starts as a science teacher. Also love the idea of Jojo as a teacher in general, I mean just imagine having him teach you science in high school. I would literally drop out.

Jojo returns from work, brings this rando with him and doesn’t get promoted. We can’t all be Wyatt I guess! We’re not completely broke anymore tho so..

It is time.

Gunther, Melody and Max Flexor on one side..

Craig, Brit Brit, Ti-Ning and Daniel on the other. What a bunch of assholes, Craig obviously excluded. Remember him? I invited him because he and Jojo are still semi-friends thinking he wouldn’t show up and yet here he is! What a good guy. 

-It’s at moments like this, watching your high school boyfriend get married.. that you really get to thinking..

Awww.

-..there but for the grace of god go I.

Less awww. You’re not wrong tho, definitely dodged a sociopathic bullet..

..not everyone is that lucky. WE GET IT WYATT YOU’RE CRAZY AND IN LOVE

-Mon bien adoré, I vow to aimer and honόr you and not cheat on you again or at least be more discrete about it <3

-And I vow not to kill you and feed you to the cats for as long as we both shall live <3 

Ah, true love, you guys. 

Too bad half our guests are inside dancing-

-OR HAVING COMPLETELY INAPPROPRIATE AND UNTIMELY THOUGHTS. TI-NING SERIOUSLY GO TO HELL. I WAS ROOTING FOR YOU WE WERE ALL ROOTING FOR YOU HOW DARE YOU

Well at least Vic is excited which is more than I can say for Gunther who is literally LOOKING THE OTHER WAY. 

Time to cut the cake with the sky as our only witness, since everyone has taken a plate from the buffet and fucked off inside. Seriously WORST GUESTS EVER 

Not one to be outdone by his guests’ questionable behavior, Wyatt takes the time to remind us who he really is. 

-And n'est-ce pas forget it!

Despite all the obvious problems, like one of the grooms literally going to sleep, our party score is ‘good time’ which is a truly rare and exciting occurrence. With less than a minute left I’m feeling pretty confident that nothing can ruin this wedding!

Weirdly no one has touched the champagne even though sims in general are obsessed with it?? My best guess is everyone is at a loss for words at having to toast this union and who can blame them tbh. Thankfully Daniel steps up and I find it super sweet because I’ve forgotten that he and Wyatt are mortal enemies and it’s only by chance they haven’t beaten each other up on this instance like they have countless times before.

-Let’s all raise a glass to my beloved brother, Jojo, who generously woke up to attend his own wedding reception! Just one of many examples of his fine, giving character. Too bad he’s committing his life to a complete waste of space adulterous loser like Wyatt, who I’m not even convinced is really french, since his ability to speak and understand english fluctuates according to convenience. Man, I promised myself I wouldn’t cry, but this choice in spouse is just too tragic. Oh well! To Jojo!

NOICE, still a good time. SO CLOSE

AND YET SO FAR. Goddammit do you two mind killing each other on your own time and not literally 10 seconds before our wedding ends??

-DIE WHORE, THIS WILL TEACH YOU TO STEAL MY MAN

-THAT’S MY LINE SLUTBAG

-HA! ZUMBA, BITCH

-Wow, so glad I woke up for this, really got my bloodlust going! 

Indeed a roaring success if there ever was one. I mean how can this night possibly get any better?

.............of course.

Oh nice, I remembered to install an alarm for once! I’m also desperately trying to wake up Wyatt thinking that he’s fucking CHIEF OF POLICE so he might prove useful in this situation..

..especially since we get this cop of a completely untrustworthy Bieber hairstyle. Talk about striking fear in the heart.

Sadly it turns out that Wyatt could not give less of a shit that we’re getting robbed and picks this moment to head for wedding buffet leftovers-

-while Bieber cop prevails! This robber is awesomely named Russ Bear btw and I wish that was my name, sounds like a slavic medieval folkore hero. But I digress. Please prepare yourselves because our first robbery is about to take a dark turn.

-Ehh, you get at a certain level on la force, you just become desensitized to la criminalité..

-Oh don’t worry Wyatt, I totally understand.. I mean I’ve robbed so many houses in my time, I hardly blink anymore..

-So it looks like you and I are not so different after all.. ;)

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

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

............................why. why has the universe chosen me for the greatest suffering the world has ever known. i try and i try but incestuous relationships just keep sprawling like mythical strangler vines. i bet this wouldn’t happen to someone named Russ Bear. fml

#ts2 #gen 2