#alley cat and beyond au

[lazaruswitch]

ik in the au's as selina's protege/sidekick/etc the boys are generally called stray or catlad

but in my fem jason adopted by selina au, julie (jay) is called *alley cat* (before growing up and shit hitting the fan) bc ofc, and i don't think i ever saw that and i think that's unfortunate

#jason todd #red hood #batfam #jason todd au #julie kyle au #selina kyle #catwoman #fem!jay multiverse #alley cat and beyond au #stray #catlad #my au #alley cat multiverse

[zablife]

A Small Favor

John Shelby & Y/n Solomons (Partners in Crime AU)

Summary: Y/n has called John for a small favor…the removal of a dead body from Alfie’s kitchen. Who was the dead man and why was he there in the first place? That might be the biggest surprise of all.

Author’s note: Requested by @darklydeliciousdesires who wanted to know what this duo would do if tasked with disposing of a body. Ty for the wonderful inspo! Also, Rose is an OC belonging to @justrainandcoffee. She is Alfie's wife and an advocate for women. Quick reminder that Y/n is Alfie's sister.

Warnings: language, mention of a dead body and murder, weapons, blood

You sat watching steam rise from a piping hot cup of tea as John paced before you. “I don’t understand,” he said, twisting his cap in his hands.

“What?” you mumbled as you shoved a biscuit into your mouth.

“How did you manage it?” he asked with a note of genuine surprise, though he should have learned by now not to underestimate you. 

You only shrugged as he gestured toward the hulking man splayed out before him on Alfie’s kitchen floor.

“Used me knife," you explained in a flat tone.

“Bloody hell,” he exclaimed with a low whistle. John stood over the mangled corpse stroking his chin thoughtfully before gazing back at you with pride. “Carved him up like a Christmas turkey!”

“Serves him right, filthy wanker,” you spat, wiping the crumbs from your lip with a shaky hand.

"Hey, you alright?" John softened momentarily, tilting your chin up to meet his gaze.

You narrowed your eyes at him, hating the look of pity you found staring back at you. "You seen the state of him? And you see me?" you gestured toward yourself with a flourish, demanding he acknowledge your victory. When he took a moment too long, you shoved him away. "Course I'm alright," you insisted stubbornly as you settled back into your chair, crossing your arms over your chest.

John let out a long sigh, wishing he'd never asked. Then recalling the trail of overturned furniture and broken glass leading to the kitchen, he changed the subject. "Was he looking for somethin'?" Opening and closing the cupboards as though he might find an answer hidden in the shelves, he called out, "Does Alfie still have that faberge egg?"

“Fuck no!" you vehemently denied. "Sold it ages ago to that toff who wanted it for his dog-faced cunt of a wife. Reckon she eats kibble out of it now or whatever the fuck rich people do."

John snorted out a laugh as he ran a hand down his face. How you could crack a joke at a time like this was beyond all comprehension. Turning back to his search, he opened another door, peering inside with intense scrutiny.

“Dunno what you're expecting to find," you muttered, irritation rising in your throat as you surveyed the room. "Not a sausage...."

John scratched his head as he glanced over his shoulder, “Is that a kosher thing?”

You rolled your eyes before clarifying, “Sausage and mash,” rubbing your thumb against your fingertips. When John still looked at you with a quizzical stare you shouted, “Cash, you daft cunt! If you think Alfie's stupid enough to hide anything of value here, you're a few sandwiches short of a picnic, mate."

He nodded in understanding. “Right, well….don’t matter why that fucker wanted in, we have to get him out.” He stood facing the man in question, removing a toothpick from his pocket and seesawing it between his teeth as he thought.

You quickly grew impatient, eyes darting wildly from the clock on the wall to John’s motionless form. “What are you waiting for? This is your speciality, ain’t it?” you asked in a high squeaky voice, anxious to move things along.

John spun around to face you, “And you’re such a big help sat there like a pudding!” he exclaimed taking a large step to swipe at you before slipping in a pool of the man’s blood. 

You raced from the table to catch him, but he was already propelled halfway across the room, finally tumbling over and landing atop the dead man’s barrel chest. “ALLEY CAT!” he roared, face to face with the man’s hideous pallor of death.

Barely containing your laughter, you watched your partner in crime grimace before turning away to suppress a gag. “Smells like cheap whisky and piss,” he proclaimed. 

“What do you reckon he smelt like? Bloody roses?” you asked, hoisting him up by the elbow.

John emitted a low growl before brushing himself off. Removing his jacket and tossing it aside, he crossed his arms, mouth twitching anxiously. “Can we get on with it?” he asked with a sigh that sounded like resignation to his fate. “You take one end, I’ll take the other,” he instructed with a nod of his chin.

John began wedging his arms beneath the man's upper body as you took hold of the thick legs which felt like two tree trunks. Hoisting the weight off the floor took a few moments and the body swung precariously between you, grunts and groans passed between you as you struggled to find equilibrium. Eventually you were able to take a few teetering steps backward and out of the kitchen doorway into the hall, but then you realized you didn't know where you were going after that.

“Wait! What’s the plan?” you demanded, knitting your eyebrows in confusion. 

John snapped his head toward you, “Are you serious?"

"Well, we can't walk out of the house with him. People will notice," you pointed out.

"Just...keep...going," he instructed through clenched teeth. When you slowed your movements again he warned sternly, "If we stop now, you're going to break my fucking back."

"No...no, I don't like this, Barney," you said, shaking your head.

"You going to fight me the whole way?" he asked, nostrils beginning to flare in frustration.

“Do you want my help or not?” you huffed, dropping the pair of legs you were barely holding to begin with and placing your hands on your hips.

Dropping his half with a thud John laughed mirthlessly. He pointed at you, cheeks rosy with exertion and the tips of his ears beginning to match as his temper ignited. “You asked me to come, you ungrateful horse’s arse!”

"What did you call me?" you asked, rushing him and pinning him to the nearest wall, hand poised over your switch blade.

Just then someone cleared their throat and you both jumped, startled by the noise.

You broke away from John, looking up at a dark haired woman who stood above you in a halo of golden morning light. Her amber eyes were warm and held nothing but concern as she searched your face in wordless communication.

John frowned at you, his eyes darting between you as he wondered aloud, "Who the fuck is she?"

Ignoring him completely, you looked up at her unable to contain the burden of your guilt. You swallowed a lump in your throat as you admitted softly to her, "I didn't want you to see this."

"Is she one of Rose's women or..." he trailed off, watching her descend the stairs slowly and walk into your waiting embrace, placing a tender kiss to your trembling lips. "Do you two know each other?" he asked thickly. "Please, Y/n, I'm so confused," he pleaded.

When you parted, you were still holding her hand tightly in yours. "John, this is Eliana Armstrong."

"And him?" John asked cautiously, pointing at the body. "You know him, don't you?"

You nodded slowly, but Eliana spoke up. "His name is Harold Armstrong,” she said sadly, holding up her left hand to reveal a small gold band on her ring finger.

John's shoulders hunched and his brow creased as he thought.

"Give him a minute," you whispered next to her ear. "Got a nice boat, that one, but he ain't the brightest."

"Oi! M not deaf!” John scowled at you. Then turning to Eliana, he puffed out his chest, ready to defend you. "You had her kill your husband?" he hissed the accusation as he closed the distance in a few long strides. "You had no right to ask that of her!" he shouted, pointing a finger in her direction.

Quickly stepping between them, you placed a hand to his chest to halt his movements. "You've got it wrong," you stated simply.

"He was going to kill Y/n..." Eliana began before you hushed her.

"She told him she was leaving to be with me. He thought he could stop her by..." You stopped to inhale a sharp breath, thinking of the perilous fight you barely survived hours earlier. "Well...you know," you swallowed harshly, not wanting to give details. "I called you cos I knew you'd be there for me no matter what," you explained quietly. John's hands dropped to his sides, fists unclenching as all tension left his body with the shock of what he'd just heard.

"Oh, my God," he said, lowering himself by the banister to sit on the bottom stair. He knew something was off when you opened the door for him, possibly before that, when he heard a slight quiver in your voice on the telephone as you gave the code word for emergencies. His heart clenched in his chest at the thought of you reaching out to him before anyone else, speechless at your show of trust.

After a few minutes of deafening silence you needed to know if John was upset for being asked to clean up your mess. "Will you please say something?" you prodded gently.

John raised his head from where it hung cradled between his large hands, his bright blue eyes observing the body lying before him in Alfie's demolished house. His curious gaze finally resting upon your exhausted and disheveled form, he managed, "Is this why we never shagged?"

---------------------

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@helen06dreamer

#peaky blinders fanfiction #Peaky blinders imagine #john shelby fanfic #john shelby imagine #john shelby x reader #john shelby x you #john shelby x y/n #john shelby

[aclowntiny]

hi!! I know you said soul exchanges weren't necessary for requests, but I'm more than willing to give mine up for this one because it's a universe I adore

superhero!ateez meeting reader. who or what the reader is? entirely up to you 👀👀👀 (the possibilities are endless omg)

((also plz I've been binging all of your writing because it's just so amazing. the cute stuff just gives me lil butterflies and the fuzzies))

yELLS you’re the sweetest actually 🫶🏻 trying to balance all of my stuff & writing, but hopefully what I have out isn’t the last of the butterflies 🦋 & fuzzies I’ll be giving you 🥰 also this is such a good AU idea??? OMG not me spending forever thinking about their powers 🫣 tried not to just drop them directly into famous heroes’ roles… but Yunho HAD to be spiderman & I will not apologize 😤😝 also, I’d be down to do a part 2 for sure hehe

Warnings: some gun/minor violence/death references, some blood, suggestive comment(s), some pain/peril for Reader, long post lol

Meeting Superhero!Ateez

Hongjoong

Magic was not something to be tarried with. It was not a substance one could bend to their will, it was an art and a fickle one at that.

No one understood that better than a person who wasn’t meant to have it in the first place. He hadn’t been tricked into selling his soul, lost himself in some foolish, evil deal, no. Oh, no.

He’d gone and died.

It had felt just like blacking out when he’d been hit, coming to like the collision was barely beyond a concussion. But the world wasn’t the world when Hongjoong awoke.

There was no sun, no plants, only twisted, dead roots, and the people passing by him little more than glowing wraiths, some looking more human than others. His first reaction was to hold his hands before his eyes, exhaling in relief at the sight of their flesh. Except it felt like his ribcage had shrunk; he was unable to get as much air in or out as usual, every fight for air shallowed.

“What’s happening? Where am I?”

“This is the Underworld,” a low voice replied from behind him, sending him shooting up to his feet and turning to face its owner.

A woman perhaps twice his age, one draped in loose black veils falling around the tight shadowy raiment she wore. Her hair like emerald flame wreathing an expression of dark curiosity, like Hongjoong were a bug she hadn’t decided if she was annoyed by.

He was confused, but not afraid. “Well, I want out. There was so much I was in the middle of out there. I can’t lose it all in some accident. I can barely breathe down here!”

The woman chuckled deeply. “Getting sent back is no simple task. We do not idly accept mistakes.”

“Isn’t there something I can do?” Hongjoong urged, stepping forward and gazing into the woman’s blazing green eyes.

“You will never be fully living again. To return is to become a conduit of the Underworld.”

“Will I be a ghost?”

“No, but your humanity will never fully be restored. Death’s connection is inescapable. A part of you will forever be tied to us. Is this what you wish?”

Hongjoong had a career up there. Friends who weren’t ghosts. A hard drive full of projects. A distinct lack of green flame littering the ground. Music. Fashion. Whatever life he could have. Breath in his lungs. The words escaped his shallow chest so quickly he barely realized he’d spoken them. “Yes, it is.”

The deal was sealed willingly and the Underworld faded away, the final sight in Hongjoong’s eyes those points of green burning into his soul.

~

Nothing seemed different when breath rushed fully back into his heaving lungs or when he crawled from the wreckage of his car. His feet still hit solid ground as he walked back to his apartment under the night sky.

And the next day when he was yanked into an alley by two dark figures, his heart sure beat. And when they, speaking of him being the one they were sent for, raised knives, surely it was a one-way ticket out of his second life. Maybe he’d be like a cat, get nine…

All of the stress, every endorphin pumped through Hongjoong’s newly-reanimated body, dropped from him like sweat and arced out as green flame.

The cloaked assailants recoiled at the flame, cursed as glowing forms rose from it. Two of them little more than skeletons, one of them much more humanoid. More like the wraiths Hongjoong saw. More like the Emerald Lady herself. He couldn't help recoiling himself, glancing down again at his hands in disbelief. That was of his making?

The duo of skeletons lashed out first, parrying dagger with sword. You sealed the deal, slamming the butt of your polearm down upon the concrete and sending cracks erupting across the charcoal grey. Beneath their staggered feet, a fissure opened up, sending the men plummeting to some unknown doom.

And with that, you turned to Hongjoong, head cocked with interest. "You're going to be hunted from now on."

He took a deep breath, balled his hands into fists. "What did she do to me?"

"Why do you think she let you go so easily? You're the next Crane."

Tempting was it to look away from the burning glow of your eyes, so similar to the ones who bore him half-escape. Hongjoong wasn't the sort to give in, though. "What does that mean?"

"You were never meant to come to the Underworld, even witness it. Whatever your memories tell you, that was no ordinary accident you were in."

Seonghwa

When you first saw him, sparks flew. Literally.

You’d been focused on the mission at hand, hovering above what you hoped was the main jet for infiltration when a burst of the most beautiful glittering energy sparked before you, wavering like the Aurora Borealis at the edges as it struck open the adjacent craft. It was enough to shake you from the crosshairs haze of disabling anything, stealing your gaze over to the sweeping flight of a black-haired man in a dashing caped suit of violet and silver.

Stories of such a man had reached your ears. “You’re the one they call Cosmos, aren’t you?” You called, mirroring the smile that rose to his lips.

He nodded. “And you must be Depth Charge.”

“I will have you know that that was not my first choice,” you replied as you sent a pulse echoing through the jet’s steel, “or my choice at all. It barely makes sense. I go up, not down.”

Cosmos chuckled at that. His eyes sparkled like the stars in his little energy burst trick, giving him an air of innocence despite his trim figure, the way he sailed through the sky in that l roguish suit. Maybe this was going to be a fun fight after all.

He swerved narrowly past a barrage of jet-fire. “Maybe we should talk when we’re not, you know, attempting to prevent the theft of confidential technology?”

"You're no fun," you mock-scoffed, smirking and boosting yourself to the next jet with a pulse of energy.

"And you're not the one getting shot at!" He fired back, blasting more crackling, star-studded energy at the next barrage before ducking below the shrapnel.

"Yeah, yeah, just come back me up, I see our guy," you urged him, crawling to the top of the jet and focusing the waves you felt into a bladelike space.

The hole had just been cut open when Cosmos swooped in next to you. He was somehow taller than you'd pictured once you saw him up close, serious expression completely changing his bearing. You studied his profile for a few seconds before sliding in through your entry hole legs first. Boots hitting hard floor with a wince-inducing jolt up your ankles, you readied another sonic blade and crept closer to the cockpit. Some shuffling at your back told you Cosmos followed close behind.

Two goons rose from their seats at the sight of you, landing a couple of punches to both of you and even managing to knock you over before you sent their inertia right back at them, slamming them against the wall as you held your surely-bruised jaw. For all his spark, Cosmos held his own in hand-to-hand combat. Well, relatively speaking. He ended up knocking his opponent out with a surprising roundhouse kick. You smiled again, giving a shake of your head.

"What?"

"Extra," you chuckled.

"I'll take that as a compliment," he replied, extending an arm to the cockpit door, "would you like to do the honors?"

"Thank you, my good man," you humored him, peeling open the door to meet with a faceful of gun barrels.

"I would stay back if I were you," the head thief remarked. Geez, was the guy reading an old movie script?

"I would stand down, actually, unless you'd like to sail through a hole torn in space," Cosmos told him, standing firm.

Your jaw dropped as you turned to face him. "You can do that?"

He gave you an urgent look.

"Sorry."

"You wouldn't risk letting this device go any more than I would," your enemy sneered, tugging his tie into place.

"I wouldn't have to. That's kind of the thing with being able to manipulate gravity. And yes, I can do that."

With that, he raised a hand and the jet flipped upside down. No, wait, you flipped upside down, drifting into the air against your own volition and flailing fecklessly for a few flaps before firing off a balancing pulse. The case drifted loosely in the air, into the hands of one of the gunners, and then right back out as Cosmos summoned it forth. The men opened fire instantly, bullets drifting slowly into air filling with faint whisps of smoke. Both of you banked hard left to dodge the fire, grunting as you hit the wall hard, but Cosmos stood firm again, offering you his hand. Taking it, you felt yourself hurtling through the air, a familiar sensation as speed returned, then the harsh blasts of wind upon leaving the hull.

"Sorry I stole your target," he told you as he drifted and you blasted away, gazes turning from the final jet's descent.

"Stole it?" You snorted, giving him a smile. "I believe that's called helping me. I'm not exactly in this for the brownie button."

"Oh, yeah, what was it again? For fun, right?"

"Something like that," you agreed.

"By the way, if we're going to be working together, we better know each other's names. Real names. My name is Seonghwa." And there were those stars again, lighting up his dark eyes in a manner far too on the nose for his hero name.

Heart fluttering, you gave him your name.

Yunho

Fortunate. That’s how many people described living in a city with a guardian. Hopeful, like if they were to get into trouble, that very man could, in the most literal sense, swoop in and rescue them. It was like magic how he appeared at the scene of wrongdoings- it only added to the feeling that he could see all that occurred through the hustle and bustle of the proverbial concrete jungle.

For Yunho, it was a lot of pressure. Phrases like the man, the myth, the legend hit a little too close to home. What if he were to let someone down? What if one day the mask got yanked off and all everyone saw was a fresh college graduate semi-desperately searching for a job to apply his major to? He didn’t always feel like a hero, just like a man doing his best to help out.

A man with wishes and dreams like any other. Oftentimes that wish was simply for life to be normal again. Like, he had been granted this amazing opportunity and yet it still fell like a burden across his heart sometimes. Especially when he looked at you.

You were his next door neighbor, the occupant of the apartment adjacent to his. Some days you both would be out on your balconies at the same time just staring out at city lights with your favorite drink in hand and you’d glance across the way and smile at each other. Start a little conversation. What do you think those people across the way are doing? Man, you wouldn’t believe this customer at work today. Whatcha got there, the usual?

It dawned on Yunho sometimes in some poetic delusion that you two took and occupied identical spaces, yet they would be wholly unknown to the other. Made reflections of someone still learned. It made him want to clean his apartment, frankly.

It put things into perspective about his powers, too. One time his spidey sense went off and he told you to step back, only for a bird poo to land exactly where your head would have been. As a jest you’d called him your hero, but the jolt that sent through his heart was anything but funny. Fuel, that’s what it was. Motivation to be the man, the myth, the legend, even in the smallest way.

~

The sense rang through his body, slid down his spine, mere seconds before the cry for help. Yunho would have recognized that voice anywhere.

As he launched a web out and swung closer to the sound, his heart pounded. It had never been anyone he knew before. It wasn’t supposed to be someone he knew. But it was you. Sailing between buildings, he stuck to the top of the nearest one, gazing down at the man before you and narrowing his eyes at his wild gestures. Without warning, though, he was grabbing you, pinning you to the wall and reaching a hand-

Thwip! A hand that was pinned to his side before it could even reach a weapon, touch you again. Swinging out from his viewpoint corner, Yunho slammed into the creep with his feet, kicking him off of you. In retaliation, he landed a punch with his good hand.

“What is this,” Yunho lowered his voice lest you recognize it as your neighbor’s, “‘I can take you with one hand tied behind my back’?”

Before the man could reply Yunho tied him down again, not wanting to stoop any closer to his level of brutality.

“I think I’ll have a word with the police on you. Heard they were investigating a bunch of abductions. It’s about time they got some practice in.”

Footsteps rang out as you ran to his side. “Spiderman! Thank you! I had no idea if anyone would hear me, but I should have known!”

“Hear you? I could feel you,” he replied, “well, er, that is, I… I have this, you know, danger sense and I-”

“Hey, it’s ok. I get it,” you said, wrapping your arms around him in a quick side hug, “I know you’re nothing like that guy. Your partner’s lucky to have a guy like you.”

“Well,” Yunho’s voice lowered even more as your eyes peered into his masked ones, as if you could see him, “I don’t actually have one. No one’s really into, uh, yeah.”

“Well, then, can I do this?” With two fingers, you motioned near the edge of his mask, sliding up its corner.

Yunho inhaled, eyes widening beneath their white affects. “Sure.”

Your fingers felt cool when they brushed the edges of his skin, staying true to their word as they peeled up the tiniest section of his mask. Leaning in, you pressed a kiss to his cheek. It took everything in Yunho not to giggle then and there.

“Thank you again,” you breathed as you leaned back.

“No problem,” Yunho replied, “need a walk back home?”

You put a hand on your hip. “Since when does Spiderman walk?”

Chuckling, he shrugged. “Thought offering a swing might scare you.”

You smiled. “I’d be down.”

“Alright, then, hold on tight and name the address.”

Yeosang

It was just another day on the streets of Seoul. The day's bustle had taken its toll on the sidewalk, crowding the strip with bodies and voices. All Yeosang wanted was to get out of there. No sooner had that thought occurred, though, was he reflexively granted that wish: one of the multitudinous passersby careened sideways into him, and in his startlement he’d disappeared entirely.

Cursing internally, he searched for witnesses, sighing with relief at the simple alley he’d unthinkingly sent himself to. Premature relief, for as he turned to leave said alley, there you were standing as if frozen in a bend over a trash can, eyes wide as saucers. He felt his own eyes reflexively widen, resisting every impulse to disappear again and leave you just wondering if you’d gone crazy, never to see him again in a city that large.

A smile spread across your face. “That was awesome! Dude, you just teleported!”

“No, I didn’t,” he deadpanned, taking a few steps toward the alley opening.

“Ok, gaslighter.”

Yeosang stopped dead in his tracks, turned to fix an eye upon you again, sighed. “You understand what a big secret you just witnessed?”

Straightening, you shot him a finger gun. “So you did teleport?”

“Yes, I did. I know how this works,” Yeosang answered, “what will it take for you to keep quiet?”

“Are you a superhero?” You asked, skipping over a scattering of alley trash to move to his side.

“I-” Yeosang sighed. Most days he felt more cursed than heroic. Burdened with secrecy and threats to all who stood for differences, deviations of any kind. But a mutation like his? Inherently greater safety than most challengers to Seoul folk. Dodging the proverbial bullet. He’d managed to teleport a woman who jumped off a building and have a conversation with her. Weeks later. She saw him again, said she considered him her hero. Humbling to say the least. After the long pause, he swallowed. “I try.”

“That’s so cool! What you need is a sidekick.”

“I’m not exactly spiderman,” he replied sheepishly.

Your eyes darted briefly away, then back to his. “Home base?”

“I mean, I live somewhere already, but-”

“No, no,” you cut him off, waving a hand, “I mean like a secret hideout where you can conduct your operations and keep your research with your…administrative assistant.”

“Ok,” Yeosang chuckled, “that’s a pretty clever workaround for ‘sidekick’. But you have to realize people like me aren’t exactly caped crusaders. It’s not an organized thing, I don’t have a danger sense, I just…help where I can.”

At that, you nodded, eager expression finally sobering a bit. “I know. I had a friend whose family attacked him over his powers. He barely made it out of there. I don’t even know where he is now. I guess I just want a better face for you guys. Maybe I just want to make a hero.”

Oh. Yeosang was not expecting that. His eyes widened, softened, blinked. “It’s a nice thought, but maybe let’s start small.” A part of him couldn’t believe he was even implying an agreement, but he’d been alone for so long. Alone wanting to believe someday the world would change.

“Like some cameras? A red-string sort of situation on local crime? Bullet dodge training?”

“I, uh, I think I’ve got the last one covered,” Yeosang replied, putting his hands in his pockets and finally shuffling toward the alley horizon, squinting as he crossed the sun’s threshold.

“You’ve been in a shootout?” You gasped, following him with a hand out over your wide eyes.

“Shh,” he hushed you, glancing back and forth at the thankfully empty street, “I told you! I try to help where I can. Even if it means making myself a target. I’m much harder to hit than the usual robbery victim.”

“This is so cool. What’s your name, by the way?”

“Yeosang.”

You gave him your name, glanced back at him from the peripheries of his vision. “They ever give you a nickname?”

“They usually just say I’m like trying to hit a ghost.”

“Ghost,” you murmured, “that could work.”

“Maybe it could,” Yeosang murmured back, smiling faintly into your wide grin, “maybe.”

San

Most of the other workers thought you were too young. You looked more the age of the test subjects, they said, despite you denying any presence of the mutagens. All you wanted was to understand them, just like anybody else. After all, harnessing the genetic component that allowed adaptation that fast had both amazing and terrifying implications for humanity. Implications not lost on the subjects themselves. It was for that reason that you were assigned to the one dubbed safest for beginners.

He was a young man about your age, a man with well-sculpted features and a contagious smile-on the rare occasion you got to see it. It wasn’t a happy life, after all, in a laboratory quarters, even if they did “simulate comfort”. It was a lie and everyone knew it- those were no apartments. They were cells. It was no way to live, and there you were working there and contributing to it.

Well, sort of. “Ok, I know they say no pins in the walls, but I keep hearing how the guy who likes to give himself bear claws has practically scratched the entire things off his room, so seems a bit hypocritical. I got your old Day6 poster,” you told your subject, holding up a few pushpins in one hand and his poster in the other.

“Aren’t you going to get in trouble?” San asked, grin emphasizing his charming dimples.

“If they fire me, they lose the latest honors geneticist, so I don’t think they want to risk it over a poster.”

“Good point,” he conceded, accepting your gift and crossing the room to pin it on the wall nearest his bed one corner at a time.

His motions were careful, calculated- far less erratic than many of the other subjects’. Subjects. You kept using that word. Dehumanizing. Was that the end goal?

“Alright, what do you think?”

San’s voice cut through your thoughts, directing your attention to the band now displayed upon his wall. One small addition and the room had that much more personality. That much more San.

You smiled. “I like it.”

He nodded toward all the guys in the picture. “Who’s your favorite?”

“I dunno,” you mused, pointing, “that one’s pretty handsome.”

“Young K? Oh, everyone tells me I look like him,” San grins.

“No, they don’t!” You tease. “You would’ve just said that about anyone I called handsome!”

“Maybe,” he shrugged, “gotta have some fun before my daily blood sample, huh?”

Smiling sadly, you just nodded, stepping back to take up your syringe tray from where you’d set it on his bookshelf.

~

Shrill warnings echoed throughout every corner of the alternately dimming and brightening laboratory, lights flashing their own alarm as your feet struck the smooth, institutional stained concrete. There’d been a containment breach, an immediate interruption to your protein synthesis as battle stations rang.

Restrain. That was the order. As if you could do anything against a guy with bear claws or venomous barbs or someone with the agility of a cheetah. That was why your company wanted the source so badly- super soldiers and all that. Always soldiers. Never curing wounds. Never jellyfish immortality. None of the subjects had thought of that one, either, as far as you knew, but then you’d yet to witness anyone using the mutagen’s power.

What could you do? There was a taser in your pocket, a small standard-issue you’d received in case of this very unlikely scenario. Restrain was about the only chance you had, but the thought of running into the breach barely crossed your mind amidst the chaos of scrambling compatriots and banging doors as the mass escape began.

All you could think of was reaching Quarters 314. San’s room. It was insane, it was stupid, it was the absolute irrevocable death of your career there- but then again, so would all the subjects escaping be.

If a bunch of the most powerful mutants you housed were escaping already, you wanted San to have freedom. Every cent you had, you’d bet that he could walk back out onto the streets and never hurt a single soul. That’s why they gave him to you in the first place- he was complacent. Kind.

304. The moment the door entered the haze of your vision, you slammed your key card on the lock sensor pad and tumbled in.

San was hunched near the doorway. “What’s going on, did someone get hurt?”

“They’re escaping. All the strongest ones,” pausing for a heartbeat, you reconsidered your words, thought about how every man and woman in the building had the same skills, “well, all the fighters. Come on.”

His eyes, shining as ever, widened. “Are we evacuating?”

“No,” you shook your head, grabbing his hand, “you’re leaving.”

“I don’t understand.”

“This might be your one chance to get back out there and live. I’ve been coming in here every day for weeks. You don’t deserve to live in a cell. As badly as I wanna know how you work, this isn’t a life for anyone. Do you want out?” You asked, tone firm despite your frantic heart, searching his eyes.

San nodded. “Ok. Thank you. I can get us out.”

You frowned. “Us?”

“If this is all on the cameras you stick everywhere, they won’t be your biggest fans anymore.”

“Good point. Are you going to…” You trailed off, unsure how to broach the subject.

He hummed in response, those soft eyes you’d seen every day hardening like never before and that sharp jaw setting. He squared…braced himself.

“You don’t like doing it, do you?” The question came out of your mouth before it had fully entered your brain, but to your relief he didn’t look annoyed.

“Depends on what it is. You haven’t seen it, have you?”

You shook your head.

“Well, sorry this is your first time,” San said, and with that, his shoulders squared again, his head falling as if struck down.

Subconsciously, you reached out hands at his pained expression, but what could you do? It was all inside him.

At least at first. Soon, the slick fabric of his moisture-wicking regulation top was splitting, bursts of blood spraying as new bone and tissue arose, tendrils that solidified into sharp flesh-toned blades before bursting into feathers. Tears fell from San’s eyes as he shakily rose back to his feet. He’d just grown wings.

And as if all that blood and tissue and the sheer amount of development occurring over mere seconds was little more than a strenuous workout, he wiped his brow with his left hand and extended his right.

“Alright, let’s get out of here.”

Mingi

Sometimes he wondered why he was chosen.

What it was about him that another race from a different planet would think he had what it took to bear and protect one of their greatest treasures? He’d just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or maybe the right place. The demand had been simple- keep it safe until others arrive for it.

The crash had happened when he was home, a sound so deafening it was like the world was ending. Shaking as he was, Mingi had run outside into the rush of the night wind, out along the smoke trail in the woods to see if whatever catastrophe had had survivors, if victims. And survivors there were- ones a bit odd-looking. Almost human save for the violet hue of their skin, the pointed tips of their ears, the vertical slits of eyelids revealed when the woman’s visor fell from across her eyes. Their skin felt different, too, as Mingi pulled them from beneath crushed metal and fire, firm and with smoothness gently interrupted by texture he could only describe as like small scales.

They didn’t look happy with him, but still accepted his help stumbling between trees and back into his home. They understood bandages, accepted beds. Swore Mingi to secrecy even as they thanked him days later. Be it technology or some uncanny occasion, they could speak to him. They could understand.

The mission they’d set out on was one of guardianship; the relic, something of myth, needed new housing and a new bearer.

“The one worthy will be selected,” the man told him in his deep, faintly accented hiss of a voice.

It was an imposition, sure. But how often did aliens land near one’s property guarding a weapon of legend? Mingi’s whole week had felt like a dream, and until he woke up the least he could do was deepen its lucidity.

“Can I see it?” He asked, peering up earnestly into their snakelike eyes from above the intricately carven and paneled box of steel with the most incredible iridescent shine he’d ever seen. Its contents had to be even more beautiful, right?

They watched, glanced down at the way his hands hovered reverently, stared back into his eyes.

“You are not of deceitful mind,” the woman replied.

“It is not out of depth that he welcomed strangers into his home,” the man shot back.

“No, it was out of kindness,” the woman insisted, waving a hand over the box, “as a reward, you may look upon the Heart of Steel.”

Gingerly, she traced some of the lines that Mingi had barely noticed with the tips of her long fingers, reaching beneath the bottom and holding her hands there until the top of the box simply floated a foot or two above the remainder, held by some microcosm gravity that drew a breath of awe from Mingi. Reflexively his fingers stretched toward the contents of the box, a smooth metal teardrop shape crafted from that same resplendent material.

Heat radiated from its small surface the moment he moved closer, sending him drawing back, but like a magnet it shot after him and into his hand.

“I’m sorry,” he said, glancing at both of the beings who still hadn’t offered him names, “I swear I’m not doing this!”

“No,” the woman shook her head, snake-eyes wide, “you are being chosen.”

~

“And you expect me to believe this why?” You asked him, brow arched.

“Because,” Mingi put up his hands in defense, eyes scanning your form, “I didn’t even want to touch it! Why would I steal this thing I know nothing about?”

“Delskvlln was right. Not a deep thinker,” you commented.

“See? I know him! They ended up telling me their names! His wife was…er…Syssmerlyss? I am so sorry if I’m not pronouncing it correctly.”

“Well, the accent needs work, but I suppose Syssmerlyss was right- you have a certain kindness about you.” You took two steps closer to him, half-tapping, half-pushing him on the shoulder twice in a gesture that probably didn’t fully translate. “Come on, then, we have training to do.”

“Well,” he scratched at the back of his neck sheepishly, “sometimes the suit doesn't cooperate, but I think I’m starting to get pretty good with the gravity swords.”

“It gave you the swords?”

“Heh, uh…yeah?”

Wooyoung

It was hard sometimes, using such abilities for good. Had he so chosen, Jung Wooyoung could have become a world leader, a dictator even. But that thought terrified him. The pressure sounded unbearable. No fun, either, not that former friends hadn’t tried to convince him countless times to use his gifts for that, too. He preferred the traditional methods of seduction, were he to desire employing any at all.

Accessing minds was Wooyoung’s least favorite skill, in fact. Seeing and hearing thoughts was crushing, uncomfortable, an unfair dominance. Bouncing twice as high as a person should be able to with a force field, though? Making things levitate out of people’s hands? Bee’s knees.

He'd been a rogue in the city, just a wanderer who did what he could to help others when he wasn’t working. Flinging the gun out of an armed robber’s hand, blocking bullets with force fields, even fighting back when he had to.

They just didn’t learn. He couldn’t help scoffing a bit and teasing them when they fired at him.

“Now, gentleman, isn’t this a bit insulting?” He’d ask, casually flipping a hand as the bullets ricocheted and buried themselves harmlessly into walls. “And besides, I don’t want to hurt you. I just think this doesn’t belong to you.”

Cue him summoning the stolen money or goods right from their indignant hands and, eventually, back to the rightful owner. After convincing them all to stand still with their hands in the air, of course.

There had just begun whispers of his presence, trepidation at the prospect of an illegal smuggle or a robbery for the first time, a name for him emerging when he faced the first true opposition.

“So, you’re the Vigilante everyone’s talking about, are you?”

“Is that what they call me?” Wooyoung shot back.

“Guess you aren’t in it for the fame,” you snickered, stepping further from the shadows of the doorway, a tube-shaped device Wooyoung didn’t recognize in your hand.

“What do you want with me?” He asked, glancing at it and crossing his arms.

“Ideally, you to get out of the way,” you replied, flicking something on the device and sending it unfolding with large cracks, climbing up your forearm like a mechanical caterpillar and glowing at the tip once your hand was completely enveloped.

“Out of the way of wh-” He didn’t have time to complete his sentence before a bolt of energy arced his way, his instincts barely kicking in in time for him to launch away from it.

Putting up a force field, he stood his ground, staring at you with new interest. “You’re part of the weapons racket, aren’t you?”

“A plus, genius,” you replied, smug satisfaction glinting in your eyes, “the city isn’t going to need you much longer.”

“You’re right,” he said, “because I’m about to kick your ass.”

Another bolt of purple energy came at him, shattering the faint glow of his field. Wooyoung’s jaw dropped, but he quickly righted it as he moved closer. It felt like his whole body clenched as his energy focused on peeling the device off. You winced in pain and jumped back as the gun fired an erratic shot that rained chunks of ceiling down behind Wooyoung’s back, sending a little lightning strike of guilt across his heart, but he kept at it, sending each piece yanked off to your side to fortify the restraints he was making. You struggled, panting and tugging as he worked, kicking aside his work and scrambling toward a panel on the wall. With each button you pressed, Wooyoung slid your feet out from under you, but in the end he heard the dreaded activation beep. The look you turned and shot him was a mix of defiance and resignation that shook him to his core and froze him to the spot. He didn’t even stop you as you ran away, just slid the nearest couple pieces of your contraption towards himself, grabbed them, and made his own flight out before the place blew.

Shielding himself from the heat and sound, he knelt and examined the scraps. Luck was on his side, it seemed; he’d gotten the chunk bearing manufacturer and serial number info. For the first time in his life, Wooyoung wasn’t going to just deflect and run- he was going to chase you down.

Jongho

It was cloudy. It was almost always cloudy. Not exactly ideal conditions for your lot, but what were you going to do? Couldn't exactly bottle sunshine, as they said.

Not that they weren't probably trying. Scientists had gone positively psycho in your city, the hottest trend being harnessing the elements. Success rate? You, at least. It wasn't supposed to be you. Maybe not anyone, for that matter, but the spores ended up in your body regardless. You'd heard that they were supposed to be used or they'd take over, but the call to do so was strong regardless.

Trees planted on the sidewalk suddenly bloomed and flourished. Green sprouted in odd hosts within the concrete jungle. Flowers out of sidewalks and the like. Anything to combat what the rest of humanity was doing, right?

That was all it had been until someone saw you. An older man, betrayingly grandfatherly, began a mild conversation that quickly deepened, progressed to him requesting your help in an investigation on the very place that exposed you to their research.

"Why me? I barely spent any time there. I wasn't the test subject, it was an accident!" Never had you realized you were afraid to return until it was asked of you. The infection was hell until it stuck, pain all over your body like you'd never known, violent reactions as your body writhed and tried again and again to reject the foreign invasion.

Then poof, there you were as the city's chlorophyll ninja.

"Because you have been inside. You've visited once, why not again? They'll never suspect a thing, and if they do, you're armed with something much greater than what I got."

"Oh," you raised a brow, "so this is personal?"

"It's beyond that," the main replied quickly, gaze darting from yours, "but yes. I'm getting older. This sort of mission is getting more difficult. But more than anything they would recognize me in a heartbeat, and I didn't exactly quit on good terms."

"I'm not in this fight. I didn't ask for any of this," you repeated, "and now you want me to go in there blind and alone? Maybe I don't want to be your recon pawn."

The old man waved a hand, the one that wasn't gloved. "You wouldn't be alone, poor dear. You think you're the only escaped lab rat? I used to think I was." Grabbing the hem of his pant leg, he pulled it up to reveal a very elaborate cybernetic prosthesis. "Both are different. But no, I've kept tabs on the place for a long time. Found another much like you."

With that, he motioned to the doorway with his free hand. Guess you could figure out why the other was covered. As your gaze traced the man's one organic limb, your eyes fell to the doorway, where a young man about your age stepped out.

His appearance was pretty innocuous. His hair was short and dark, his expression stony but his features kind. His broad shoulders were draped with a long coat that swayed near the base of his boots, and beneath that he wore a dark turtleneck and jeans.

"How do you do, Neo?" You quipped as your eyes scanned his form.

To your great surprise, that 'mission go' look on his face melted rapidly into a wide grin, a chuckle. Guy had a nice smile.

"It's Jongho. That was good, though." He nodded down toward you. "Was the green intentional?"

You yourself glanced down at your outfit, and you'd be darned. You were wearing green. Apparently this Jongho fellow knew more about you than you did of him. You were surprised he didn't comment on the potted plant necklace you'd gotten from Etsy- the one you'd nicknamed 'ammo'.

"No, but I guess fate has a sense of humor. Do you have beef with FTR Labs too?"

Jongho nodded. "They have my brother."

At that, your heart dropped. Just by the man's tone of voice you could tell he was trying to be brave, but he didn't want to go back to FTR any more than you did. Want, no. Need? Yes. Maybe the old man was right- maybe they were taking their experiments too far. You hadn't even seen what they'd done to Jongho yet. If it had been a fight for his body, too, let alone his brother's.

"Alright," you nodded, shoving your hands in your pockets, "I'll go with you. Do you have a plan?"

"Of course. My main goal is to disrupt their comms first."

"Classic. How do you propose we do that?"

"I figured a little lightning would do the trick."

"Excuse me?"

Wordlessly, Jongho stared at you, his eyes almost glazing over as gusts of wind rolled through the room and clouds drifted over his head, spattering his black-clad shoulders with tiny droplets of rain. Electricity arced between two of the clouds, light flashing like tiny, branched white roots as it traveled down his cheek, through his arm and into his hand as if illuminating his very veins. Harnessing the elements.

Nothing could have stopped your jaw from dropping, but as you righted yourself, you couldn't help smiling with a strange rush of anticipation. "Hey, if you're the one that's been keeping it so cloudy these days, can you at least rain a little on my friends?" And with that, you let ammo grow out, engulfing your upper body with the comforting hug of leafy vines.

"Kids," the old man shook his head, "always showing off."

#ateez #ateez imagines #ateez reactions #ateez x reader #ateez scenarios #hongjoong #seonghwa #yunho #yeosang #san #mingi #wooyoung #jongho #ateez x gender neutral reader #gender neutral reader #superhero AU #ask #oblivimin #requested #hope you like this 😘

[ceruleancattail]

Stray Cat

Mystery Au

Tw: death, gore

Dark and dreary streets were all you knew.

The gentle trickle of water, droplets crashing into the ground. A sewage pipe, rusted beyond repair. Filthy water drips onto the streets, the stench of ammonia clogging your nostrils.

Your shoes beat against the pavement, trudging through the darkness. A brisk pace, a steady rhythm. Beating in pace with your heart.

Thump,

thump,

thump.

Glancing forward, the alley seemed to stretch on forever. Dingy little doors, hinges coated with the reddish brown of rust. Curtains were yanked over the windows, shrouding its interior in darkness. These flats appear empty, deserted by their occupants.

Yet with every step you take, you could feel their gazes. Glaring at your back, piercing deep into your skin.

The locals weren’t known to be hostile, but you’ve never been one to take that much of a risk. A hand rises to your chest, patting the side of your coat.

Some firm presses into your palm. The sharp, sinister angles of a gun. Tucked away in your holster, bullets loaded.

Ready to fire at any second.

You’ll prefer not to, honestly. There’s already enough death in this country. You didn’t need to bother the reaper any more.

After all, there’s only cold blood on your hands. The blood of victims, too late to save. Their vacant eyes haunt you, even in your sleep. Lurking in the depths of your mind, ghastly hands clawing at you, voices screeching.

Begging you to help them, cold clammy fingers sinking deep into your flesh, tearing you up from the inside out. Countless victims, each with their own gruesome murders. One had his head bashed open, skull fragments littering the streets. Another had her throat slit in the bathroom, stuffed in a trunk and sent overseas. You’ve seen kills of anger, of despair, of passion…

Yet humanity still found ways to surprise you every time. Just how desperate does one have to be to snuff out another’s life?

A purr has you pulled back to reality. Fur nuzzles into your neck, a sharp nip into your skin. Eyes of cerulean blue stare at you, pupils dilated. Your companion, Grim.

You would call him your sidekick, but you’re pretty sure he sees you as the sidekick. Can’t really complain about his attitude, not when his company keeps you sane during the worst of times.

Nudging your chin, he stares forward pointedly. Chuckling, you reach for his head. A good ruffle that has Grim purring from your touch.

“You’re right. Gotta’ keep focused, yeah?”

You stare down the alley, with its shadows twisting and turning, alluring in its mystery. The darkness beckons seductively, pulling you into its depths. It’s rather easy to hide, especially under the cover of night.

The things that go on within the backstreets of Twisted Wonderland…

It’s your job to bring them to light.

Tilting your head, you bump against Grim lightly.

“Well then, I suppose it’s time for us to start work.”

#the mage’s hat 🎩 #twisted wonderland #twst #twisted wonderland x reader #disney twisted wonderland #twst x reader #The Detective of Ramshackle #au #twisted wonderland au #mystery au #Stray Cat

[birgittesilverbae]

thinking of babea au and lilith forced to seek refuge in her childhood home with an injured bea.

lilith standing in the foyer, stooping to heft beatrice into her arms and she smells of ozone, of burnt-out matches. her hair smells of cedarwood.

the apparition of her mother looking shrunken next to a suit of armour, wineglass in hand, and beatrice only half-aware of anything (mostly aware of lilith’s warmth, her neck, her breath when she looks down as though afraid that beatrice will suddenly stop breathing) but struck by the thought that lilith must have found her silence somewhere. here.

the quiet she carries with her, and how when she laughs it feels like the air has cracks in it. beatrice craves that sound, but the foyer echoes. lilith’s childhood home is full up with silence.

lilith stands, ignoring the steady drip, drip of bea’s blood onto the tiles, how it smears the family crest. she stares at her mother over the wrinkling of bea’s brow, her soundless sighs committed to the tomb of lilith’s throat and she feels, for an instant, like she’s holding a flame instead of a girl.

holding a match for too long and begging it not to burn her fingers.

her mother says her name. that’s all; ‘lilith’ in her sepulchral tone, eyes roaming over the bloodied shape of beatrice cradled in her arms. all the bullet holes are gone, ringed by blood but incapable of harming her. there’s a handful of them sitting inside lilith’s pocket, digging into her thigh.

she doesn’t know why she picked them up, except perhaps that they were soaked in bea’s blood and she didn’t want to leave them in the alley where she dragged beatrice. where she listened to her in the dark hiccupping blood as mercenaries flickered past them in the street beyond.

lilith had to wrap her body around the cruciform sword. it glowed like a beacon. she manged it, mostly, but the light caught beatrice’s eyes. they caught on her pain as though on broken glass.

her mother stares as they trail blood over the parapet floor, the carpet, following after lilith as she lays beatrice down on one of the sofas. it’s more of a loveseat, really, and looking at it in the lamplight lilith is struck by a smaller, cleaner version of herself sitting cross-legged, a book open in her lap.

beatrice lies there, bleeds there. it’s mostly from her arm, where lilith watched a divinium-laced bullet strike her, spinning her back into lilith’s arms, blood erupting over her fingers. beatrice was already full of bullets, listing from the halo’s fading burn, but the sight of that unearthly blue light glimmering in her skin made lilith more afraid than she thought was possible.

somewhere between the family crest and the sight of beatrice dampening the sofa cushions with blood, lilith’s mother seems to find her voice.

she opts for Italian, which only makes beatrice’s lips twitch, and lilith has to fight back the insane urge to kiss her. not in front of your mother, fool!

this of course swiftly followed by, and why would it matter?

instead, lilith smooths beatrice’s hair off her forehead, ignoring the sweat and dirt that follows the sweep of her palm. “rest,” she commands, picking up the old version of her voice from the days when she used to pin beatrice to the mat in cat’s cradle and lean down close to say “yield.”

“where are you going?” out of spite, beatrice says this in Latin, which shortens it tremendously.

even with her mother’s eyes on her, lilith can’t help but dip down, darting a quick kiss to beatrice’s forehead. “just rest. i’ll be back.”

she dumps her duffel down next to beatrice, hoping and yes, maybe praying, that she has what she needs inside.

“what was that?” her mother says as lilith moves back out into the foyer. her body wants to tremble but she holds it still, moves to the staircase like a thief stealing into heaven.

her mother follows her with a string of complaints as she digs out clean clothes for bea (hers, old, trying to pay no attention to what she chooses).

lilith fetches warm water and washcloths, she tries to breathe. the response, when she asks after food, is “why on earth would I know what we have to eat?”

she carries it all back to beatrice, takes the first aid kit from her duffel. forced to cut through bea’s armour to reach the only intact wound. she makes herself listen to beatrice’s unguarded cries of pain as she takes the shards of divinium out of her shoulder. the halo flickers, gleams, replaces bea’s blood which is just as well.

there’s so much of it on her hands.

her mother hisses at her for ruining the furniture and lilith feels herself go still and quiet.

“you should be happy. aren’t you the one who told me that anything the halo touches is holy?”

bea slipping into consciousness just long enough to hear lilith say, “well, here she is; the holiest thing you’ll never get your hands on.”

her mother leaves. there’s the sound of an engine starting, a door slamming. then a better silence.

she bandages bea’s shoulder and kisses her properly, careful not to get any more blood on her face. “time for bed,” she mutters.

“can’t… don’t think I can walk.” beatrice is only half-awake.

“i’ll carry you.”

a hand on her chest, “no. just be here.”

lilith makes up a bed for them on the floor. she lights the fire with wet wood from the shed outside that spits as it takes the flame.

the next morning bea sits at the kitchen nook, wearing lilith’s old taekwondo hoodie, tracing the logo on the sleeve with her fingers while lilith burns their scrambled eggs

lilith, slightly chagrined, sets down a plate of overcooked toast and dry scrambled eggs. bea looks at her and it’s an odd expression. it’s the look she saves for the ocean, or for certain flowers.

they eat, bea tucking into her tasteless meal like she’s never eaten before, pretending she can’t see lilith looking at her with a sort of bleak fondness.

because bea’s hands are trembling as she holds her cutlery and she looks strange and small in lilith’s hoodie and a pair of old sleep shorts. they’re eating at the breakfast nook in the kitchen that her mother never uses but where lilith used to eat lunch (and dinner if her mother was at a party). it feels sacred to her, somehow. feels right to find beatrice sitting there.

bea makes a short noise of delight, noticing a big, uncoordinated ‘LILITH WAS HERE’ carved into the wood right at the edge of the table. she makes lilith scoot over next to her, points to it, then shamelessly takes advantage of their closeness to tuck both her hands into one of lilith’s sleeves so she has to eat left-handed. clumsily.

lilith rolls her eyes, but she laces her fingers through bea’s, and kisses her again.

#oh fuck off #warrior nun #ask #'anon' #babea au #beatrice x lilith #shut up about carrying her shut up about carrying her shut up about lilith going quiet in that house bites you bites you bites you

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 22?

Imagine an Animorphs-esque Batman au

 Like, either Alfred as an andalite who crash-landed on the Wayne’s property and they just kind of pack bonded with him or some other andalite crash lands at some point. Either way, Bruce ends up being allowed to touch a morphing cube after the death of his parents. Perhaps is even given it to keep hidden- the one thing he has no files on just in case. 

 So he goes off on his training trip while hiding his whole shapeshifting, seeing as he doesn’t want to get stuck in animal form. (Though who knows, magic might be able to help if he ever does.) Only practices said shapeshifting or gathering animal forms when no one else is around, trying to get down the time and changing some things before others. Bruce doesn’t really use it for Batman, except for stakeouts. Honestly, who expects a vigilante to appear when there’s no one around but the birds perching on the buildings? And flying is always freeing. 

 Now he doesn’t mean to give his Robins the same ability, it’s not his power to give in his opinion even if it’s beyond useful. Also Dick and the others would have a far easier time sneaking out before they even became his official partner and kept trying to go off for revenge. But then Dick got separated from him and got hurt, then Jason nearly got killed, then Barbara nearly couldn’t escape something, and he brings them through the twisting tunnels one by one to the cube. There’s no take backs, only two hours in each form before they need to return to their base one. He doesn’t care about keeping secret identities, as long as they stay safe and alive. 

Some Animal form ideas:

 Alfred Human (If an alien) Raven Bobcat Polar Bear

 Bruce Wolf Capybara (Comfort to his kids) Tiger Hoary Bat Unicorn (He did in fact ride one before) 

 Dick Dog (Comfort thing) Squirrel Falcon Cassowary

 Barbara Queen Snake Owl Rattlesnake Komodo Dragon

 Jason Alley Cat (Easiest to nab) Red Fox Eagle Red Kangaroo Brown Bear

 Cassandra Cat Black Bear Mouse Eared Bat Python

 Tim Owl Raccoon Bobcat Crocodile

 Stephanie Pigeon Rat Porcupine Cape Buffalo

 Duke Goose Eagle Hippo Lion

 Damian Cat Leopard Brown Bat Elephant Demon-Bat

 Jarro Human Dog Robin Blue-Ringed Octopus

#dc crossover #dc prompt #dcu #batman au #prompts #animorphs crossover #animorph batfam #batman #bruce wayne #alfred pennyworth #robins #batfamily #honestly i have more ideas #including jason getting snatched by talia and them after the warehouse but not dying #but i am alreasy sleep deprived enough

[potatoobsessed999]

DO tell us more about your warrior cats silm au!!

I can’t find the notebook I was using to brainstorm it :( but I think most of what I had was what various characters’ warrior names would be. (Coming up with warrior names is a very absorbing task!)

Other than that, I remember the Noldor were ThunderClan and the Teleri were RiverClan. Morgoth was a rogue from a big TwoLeg city, and he and his evil badger (I think badger?) ally destroyed the Moonstone somehow? And stole the last bits of it, and also killed Finwë (who cannot be called Furstar so IDK what his name is). Fëanor was the deputy, but can’t become leader and get his nine lives without the last pieces of the Moonstone. So he leads ThunderClan in pursuing Morgoth to the city (against StarClan’s advice given in dreams) and in the process they trespass en masse on RiverClan territory and have a battle about it. Probably it’s like the Entirety of ThunderClan versus one RiverClan patrol, and is therefore a massacre. They get to the city, and IDK how it goes from there beyond the basic Silm plot beats.

Other things: The Sindar are alley cats. Morgoth holds Maedhros captive by trapping his leg in a rabbit snare.

#silm #tolkien #warrior cats #sorry to take so long to answer this 😅 #probably the balrogs are dogs or something #i wonder what the dragons could be…

[sixpossumsinatrenchcoat]

The things we leave behind: PERSISTENCE

In the last act of my postgame Headspace AU, Sunny and Omori finally, *actually* talk.  You can start from Chapter 1 (of 6) here: ao3.org/works/45213322/chapters/113743957

Then nothing happens for two weeks.

...Well. That’s technically not true. Now that Sunny lives in the real world, things are always happening. Kel’s intramural basketball team wins a grudge match against the YMCA that Kel’s decided is their nemesis. Aubrey bums a cigarette off some girl in an alley and then drops off the grid for eight days before resurfacing to report, with clear regret, that “Helen still has a lot of growing up to do.”

Sunny squints at her. “You’re like... 20.”

“Maybe physically,” Aubrey sniffs. “But I’m wise beyond my years.”

Basil spirals into a full-fledged breakdown over an end-of-term deadline before very nervously accepting a few of Kel’s Adderall. Then he writes the whole paper in five hours and spends the rest of the night deep-cleaning Sunny’s kitchen and alphabetizing the spice rack and organizing all the treasures in the junk drawer by material and size. Which would be fine, until he wakes Sunny up at 4 in the morning to ask if the arthropod fossil should be filed under ‘stones’ or ‘organic materials.’

“I don’t care,” hisses Sunny, who’s 80% asleep and 100% incensed. “I hate you. If you ever take Kel’s meds again, I’ll kill you.”

Hero convinces himself that he bombed an exam and spends four days stress-baking before Sunny has to physically stop him, because the fridge is so full of banana bread and shortcake that there’s no room for actual groceries. (Hero gets an A. Obviously. This happens every month.)

Kel gets his ear pierced. Aubrey goes along to keep him company and walks out with two new tattoos. Basil starts experimenting with aquaponics. Sunny starts experimenting with gouache.

Things keep happening, but only when he’s awake. No more nighttime visitors. No more weird, reality-breaking dreams. Sunny thinks about Omori sometimes, but he doesn’t waste time worrying. If Omori needs him, he knows how to find him.

It might have been nice to find out how everything turned out. To wrap the whole ordeal up neatly, with a bow. But by now, Sunny knows that closure only exists in fiction. In real life, stories don’t end. They just… stop.

Then he starts seeing things.

And not just the usual things, e.g. street art, stray cats, sunsets. A specific thing. Something… behind him.

He’s in the bathroom, brushing his teeth, when his eye snags on a blur of motion in the mirror. Something long and lifeless, swinging from the rafters. When he whips around to look, it’s gone.

He’s lying awake late into the night, waiting for sleep to take him. He’s already taken melatonin and Advil PM and two CBD gummies and a Valerian tincture under his tongue, which is… pretty much everything a guy can do, sleep-wise. From there, it’s just about keeping your eyes shut and not looking at your phone. But Sunny hates doing nothing. He spent four years doing nothing but. And when he finally sighs and sits up, he can’t not see the figure looming over the foot of his bed. Lank black hair on dead white skin.

He’s getting up to get a glass of water. Or he’s skulking between high-rises on a storm-gray day, trying not to look at his reflection in the glass. He dips his brush into the palette and pretends he can’t see the eye glaring up through a pool of Eggshell White.

But he can’t run away forever. He’s not sure he’d even want to.

It feels increasingly clear that Mari (or Omori, or his subconscious mind or whatever) is trying to tell him something. He just doesn’t know what it is.

It would help if he could talk about it. Hero is unnaturally good at sussing out why Sunny’s feeling what he’s feeling, usually before Sunny’s even noticed that he’s feeling it. Not as good at Mari, but still very good. And Basil knows more than anyone about what’s going on in Sunny’s head.

But they would worry. Their nightmares might get a little more colorful; a little more specific. And it’s not like Sunny really minds. He’s always happy to see Mari.

####

Legacy is funny. It never looks the way you would’ve guessed, but it’s almost always right.

Take Mari. Mari’s legacy is:

Mischief (and with it, the growing conviction that she knows more than she’s letting on),

Unnervingly keen, loving attention,

Fucking with people for sport, and

Picnics.

Picnics are the big one. Like Mari, they sit at the junction between worlds. It’s the ideal middle ground between indoor kids and outdoor kids; between fragile, bookish readers and rough-and-tumble wrasslers. Even after seven years without her, the friends she left behind are still happiest stretched out on a grass-stained gingham blanket, with the wind in their hair and the sun on their skin.

Everyone picnics differently. Kel and Aubrey romp around in the grass, throwing a frisbee or racing to the nearest bodega to decide who’ll foot the bill for a family-pack of ice cream sandwiches. Basil likes to find a safe little corner to write in his notebook or read—anything that makes him look busy enough to speak up when he wants to, without feeling like he has to. Hero studies and studies and occasionally glances up to make sure Kel didn’t leave the cooler open again. And Sunny? Sunny sits back and watches the show. He yawns and rolls over and naps in the heat of the sun.

Speaking of which. Sunny stretches like a cat and flops backward, till his head comes to rest in the crook of Mari’s knee.

“Hehe,” she giggles, grinning down at him. “Silly little kitty. We should get you a bell. You and Mewo could match!”

Sunny wrinkles his nose. “It might wake me up.”

“A fate worse than death,” she says gravely. “Don’t worry, little brother. If anyone tries to bell you, I’ll bell them.”

Well. Good.

He’s about to close his eyes when a shadow falls over her. Long, dark. Cold. A gash of white in a pillar of black, its edges billowing in the breeze.

Sunny’s breath catches. Mari. But— But she was just—

…Oh. He must be dreaming. When he’s awake, Mari doesn’t go around hosting picnics. When Sunny’s awake, his sister is dead.

“Um,” he says. “Hi.”

His sister’s smiling face flickers. The phantom looming above her stretches longer still. “...Sun…ny… Can we… ta…lk…?”

Sunny sits up obediently. He always wants to talk to Mari.

“…ehe…” the shadow giggles. “Listen… Nee…d… you… Omori…”

Sunny stiffens. Does that mean that Omori really is in trouble? But—Omori knows where to find him. If he needed help, why wouldn’t he just ask?”

One huge, sideways eye creases with amusement. “…Like h…ow… you did…?”

Oh. Right. Sunny knows how to ask for help now. And even now, it’s rarely his first instinct. But when he was Omori’s age…

He shakes himself off. “What do I do?”

“...Eas…ier… if…” The phantom stretches out one long gray tendril of shadow. “…show… you…”

Her spectral flesh feels gelatinous against his skin, rubbery-cold as dragonfruit. “Show me.”

###

Sunny opens his eyes in a white void. Cold as the vacuum of space and just as endless. But this time, White Space isn’t vacant. He can hear murmured voices, the rustle of cloth and the hush of breath.

When he sits up, he finds three figures and seven eyes staring back at him. The weird thing is, not one of them belongs to Omori.

Ex-Chairman Hero is here, looking vaguely puzzled and majorly perturbed. Basil hovers by his elbow, wringing his hands worriedly. But his shadow is distinctly not wringing its hands. Its arms are crossed, its searing eyes narrowed with impatience. Behind them, the specter of Mari—or is it Something, now? Sunny makes a mental note to ask her what she likes to be called—still looms.

“Um,” Sunny says. It’s not exactly the welcome he expected. “Hi?”

Headspace Basil gives him an anxious little smile. “Thanks very much for coming. I think we could use all the help we can get.”

When he closes his mouth, his voice keeps on going without it. “Yeah, right,” it mutters.

Basil looks mortified. “S-Stop that!!”

“I just don’t see why he’d open up to some random guy if he won’t even see his best friend,” Basil’s voice says sullenly. The words seem to issue out from his shadow, without any intermediary vocal cords.

“Aw, c’mon, Basil,” Hero laughs. “We talked about this! Sunny isn’t just some guy. He’s Omori’s—um. He’s…”

Sunny listens with interest. He’d always wondered what Omori’s friends thought of him. (If they’d thought of him at all. Until recently, Sunny had never actually set foot in Headspace. And the only one who ever came to White Space was Omori. Sunny had sort of had the impression that no one else could come here.)

Hero clears his throat. “A-hem. Um. Sunny is— He’s Omori’s…” He frowns a little and leans back, looking up into Something’s sideways eye. “What did you say he was?”

“...I thought y…ou were su…pposed to be an… honor student…”

“It’s not like they put this on our exams!!”

The specter snickers. “…Don’t… think too hard… about it…”

Hero grins ruefully. “Yeah, that’s… not really something I’m good at.”

“…ehe…” the phantom giggles. It’s not the same as Mari’s laugh. Mari’s laugh was a cheeky little snicker, like a cat playing with its food—unless you caught her off guard, in which case it barreled out of her like a foghorn. This is barely an echo of that. But the mischief is the same. “...If you… insist… Just… think of Sun…ny as my… little brother…”

Hero frowns. “But Omori’s your brother.”

“…yes…”

“But Sunny’s not Omori’s brother?”

“…definitely not…”

Basil’s shadow snickers. “Trust your girlfriend on this one. You’re not ready for the big picture.”

“G-Girlfriend???” Hero squawks, his voice breaking halfway. “We’re not— I mean!! It’s not like we…” He trails off. On the ground in front of him, Sunny is raising his hand. “Uh. Yes? Sunny?”

“I don’t understand.” Of course Sunny is happy to see them all. Together, especially. But— “Where are Kel and Aubrey?”

The specter of Mari flickers like a moth trapped inside a projector.

Hero winces, too. “We’re, uh. Still working on that.”

“...Still… a little sc…ared…” Mari whispers. “...Not their fault… Doing their best…”

Sunny’s forehead furrows. It doesn’t make sense. Aubrey is famously fearless. And Kel never slows down for long enough to get properly scared. Basil, on the other hand…

Mari’s edges flutter with another whistling laugh. “...Stranger and… I… go wa-a-a-ay back…”

“The nerd’s only scared of stupid stuff, anyway,” Basil’s shadow agrees. “Being wrong, and getting in trouble and things. He’s fine when it’s actually scary.”

“A-hem!” Basil huffs, planting one foot squarely on his shadow’s two-dimensional face. “I-I think we can all agree that— The point is, we’re all just worried about Omori!!”

“Worried he’ll disappear again,” his shadow hisses. “That he’ll leave us all behind.”

“Which would be fine!!” Basil rushes to clarify. “I-If that was what he really… Or, I mean… If that was r-really what was best for him, then—”

“But it’s not,” his shadow says flatly. “What? It’s true. You don’t have to pretend like it isn't. He isn’t moving on, he’s just being stupid. Again. Running away like a scared little kid.”

“He is a scared little kid,” Sunny points out.

Basil’s shadow rolls its eyes. “Yeah, well. Join the club.”

…Fair.

But that still doesn’t explain what Sunny’s meant to do about it. If they just need someone to talk to Omori, there’s got to be someone more qualified. Like. Literally anyone else. There’s a reason that Sunny’s friends are so talkative. If you put two wordless, socially stunted weirdos in the same room, nothing ever happens.

“...N…ot about… what you say…” Mari’s ghost whispers. “...No one else can… get inside… Only him…”

Ah. Okay. He’s starting to see the larger picture. Sunny might be worse at talking than anyone else in this room—and that includes the sentient nightmare who can barely fit two words between a sea of ellipses. But he’s also the only one here who arguably is Omori. (A part of him. The rest of him? Whatever.)

“Okay,” he sighs. “I’ll try. But. I’m open to suggestions.”

###

Omori is holed up in what used to be Sweetheart’s Castle.

Not that Sunny has any idea what that means. Omori said something about “getting rid of it,” but… what? Even by Headspace rules, it’s a little hard to swallow. Weren’t there people inside? Sprout moles are one thing—their sentience is very much up for debate—but did Omori remember to flush Rococo out of the basement before wiping it out of existence?

…There’s only one way to find out.

Sunny turns to face the others. “Any ideas?”

Hero practically trips over himself in his haste. “I-I made some soup!!! It’s, um. It’s… the same kind Mari used to make.”

“...Tell him… I love him…” the phantom whispers.

Basil squeezes his eyes shut. “Tell him I miss him so much!!!! I— There’s no pressure, it’s okay if he still needs—but we just!! I don’t know what to do without him!!!”

“Tell him we’re pissed,” his shadow hisses. “He can’t keep pulling this shit. There’s a limit to how many times we’ll—”

“Shut UP!!!” Basil screeches. “You know that’s not true!! T-Tell him we’re— W-We’re not going anywhere!!!”

“...but… don’t fe…el any… pressure…” Mari’s ghost whispers. “…might not even… get inside…”

Sunny snickers. Cool. Got it. Very helpful.

He throws back the doors—

  —and steps into his living room.

(No, Sunny reminds himself. Not his. Just a room, now. Just a room where he used to live.)

Omori’s hideout isn’t a palace or a prison. It’s just a normal room. Beige carpet. Beige couch. Beige walls papered over with photos, so so so many photos. School pictures and Christmases and family portraits from a shop that’s long since shuttered, all stiff stances and smiles with too many teeth. But afterwards they went to All Star Burger and Sunny got a milkshake for making it through the whole session without shutting down or crying. Mari got one, too, just for being Mari. She deserved a million milkshakes. Eighty more years of milkshakes, at least.

The stain on the carpet. The way the lamp always flickered, no matter how many times you tightened the bulb. Mari said it must be haunted. But when Sunny ran into her room crying, she didn’t yell or send him away. She just told him, gently, that ghosts are really only people. Just lost, lonely people. And when they act out, it’s not because they want to scare you. They’re just afraid of being forgotten. They just want one last chance to be seen.

Mari, Mari, Mari. Everywhere he looks, there’s so so so much Mari. Gap-toothed and beaming, holding out the stag beetle she caught all by herself. Standing stick-straight in front of the concert piano, prim and well-groomed and stiff with fear. Dancing. Laughing. Carrying her baby brother on her back even when her knees buckled. For years after Sunny should have been too old for it, Mari never minded carrying him home.

“What are you doing here?” a voice asks. His own voice, ten years out of date.

Sunny jumps. He’d almost forgotten why he came. “What are you doing here?” he counters, for lack of anything better.

Omori looks down at himself, then back up. “…Sitting?”

“Right. But. Why here.”

Omori rolls his eyes. “White Space isn’t ours anymore. I guess nowhere is. The others kept bugging me. I just want to be alone.”

Sunny frowns. “You hate being alone.”

“You hate being alone," Omori says dully. "I don’t know what I hate.”

…Oh.

“And anyway, I’m not alone.”

Sunny’s forehead furrows. He follows Omori’s gaze to the corner of the room, where there’s a heap of old laundry scrunched against the wall.

—No. Not laundry. Mari. Not as she was, but as she is. Dead gray flesh mottled with rot. Crumpled limbs stacked like kindling. Empty.

“I made this place,” Omori announces. “Like you made everywhere else. You made a million miles of light and life and I made one boring room. I couldn't even figure out the TV. I tried, but it’s only static.” He looks up at Sunny, stone-faced. “Did you put anything good in me at all?”

What is he supposed to say to that? “Your friends seem worried…”

“Your friends. I don’t have any friends. Just hand-me-downs.”

Maybe. “They’re still worried.”

Omori shrugs.

Sunny shifts his weight uneasily. Omori isn’t giving him very much to work with. “You’re—um. You’re… not having a good time.”

“No.”

Then why are you here? “Then…”

“Why did you leave?” Omori asks abruptly. The words short and sharp. “Everything was fine before you left. Kel was never busy, and Aubrey never picked on us. And Hero was happy. And Basil was always okay. And—” He digs his nails into the arm of the couch, forces the name through his teeth. “Mari was. Alive. Mari was alive and she was perfect. Everything was perfect.”

Yes. That’s true. Sunny remembers.

Omori’s face darkens. “I know you," he spits. "You can fool them, but you can’t fool me. I don’t care how many stupid piercings you get. Out there you’re pathetic. Just some loser shut-in freak who’s too afraid to be alone. You think because you can talk now, it means you’re doing fine? You’re not fine. You’re still a freak. And you’re still a murderer.”

Sunny nods. Why would he argue? It’s the truth.

“So—why?” Omori grits out. “Why go back there? Why would you even want to?”

Oh. Hm. It’s an interesting question.

Sunny takes his time, thinking it over. There’s no use trying to answer right away. A half-baked answer won’t do Omori any good, and it might upset him even more. You can’t just throw a slurry of wet flour in the oven. You have to give it time to rise.

…Why did Sunny go back? It wasn’t just that he was dying. He’d been dying for ages, for years and years and years. He knew he was dying and it didn’t scare him. He used to think about it sometimes. It sounded… peaceful. So it’s not as though he was running away from the dark. He must have been moving toward something.

A lot of it was Mari. Obviously. Always. Was it ever even a question? Mari was the catalyst for everything. She’s the one who taught him how to be a person, and then a decent person. Before her death and after. She crawled out of the grave to pound on his door and remind him to be brave.

But it wasn’t only Mari. It was just—everything.

Sunny opened the door and everything was different. Everyone was different. He’d stepped into the last act of a story that no one had bothered to tell him. His friends looked like strangers. Everything that should have been familiar felt alien and strange. There was so much that he didn’t understand. So why did he decide to stay?

Part of it was just concern. Love and fear and the guilt that blooms from the marriage of the two.

When he first laid eyes on Basil, Sunny didn’t even recognize him. Basil had always been brittle, but now he was broken. Bloodshot. All the meat chewed from his bones. He shuddered and twitched and his hands flinched around in violent little jerks, like a fledgling flung from the nest before it’s finished growing its pinions. Too weak to fly, but too afraid to die.

Basil moved like breaking glass. Like breaking bone. He looked at Sunny with a million words trapped under his tongue. Civilizations rose and fell behind his eyes. Comedy, tragedy, catharsis. What had made him like this? Could it really have been Sunny?

(No. Yes. Sort of. But Sunny didn’t know that yet. He wouldn’t find out till there was only one day left.)

But it’s not as though Sunny faced the truth for anything as noble as concern. Sunny is many things, but he isn’t noble. He’s pragmatic. Realistic. (Selfish.) He protects his friends because he loves them. He loves them because it makes him feel good. He knows that he’s nobody’s hero.

So it wasn’t only worry. He was curious, too. About Aubrey, especially.

Aubrey. Seeing her was a shock to his system, a lightning-strike straight to the brainstem. He’d remembered her fussy, unflinching. Brash, but not insensitive. Forceful, but never cruel. The girl he met in the park… It couldn’t be Aubrey. How could it be Aubrey? She was wild with hate. Her eyes burned coldest when glaring at him.

But Sunny had trusted Aubrey. She was his compass, his focus. The one he could trust to speak from the heart. Aubrey was true to the bone. What could have made her like this?

(Sunny, Sunny, Sunny. Everything she lost and kept losing, it was all because of—)

—But he’s getting carried away. And anyway, that can’t have been the reason. Sunny didn’t have to go outside to hate himself, or blame himself. He was doing a perfectly adequate job of that all on his own. So then, why?

Ohhh, he realizes. It’s because— “It was fun.”

Sunny confronted the truth—the searing torment of an unbearable reality—because he was having fun. Fun! While he was awake! When’s the last time that he could say that?

When Kel knocked on his door, Sunny was, truth be told, probably not taking very good care of himself. Not being altogether kind. He used to think that he liked himself well enough, when Mari was alive. And then she died, and Sunny realized it was only ever Mari. Mari had loved him, and Mari knew everything, so it stood to reason that he must have deserved it. He’d felt entitled to all kinds of kindness, when he was Mari’s little brother. But when she was gone—and after what he’d done—

And then he opened the door and Kel beamed at him like a living, breathing sun. Kel took him by the hand and drew him out into the light and then acted like Sunny was the one who’d done something amazing. He looked wildly different, a hundred feet taller and stronger and more beautiful, and somehow he still felt exactly the same. And hanging out felt exactly the same.

But everything else was so new! The town thronged with faces that Sunny’d never seen before, or that he’d known and then forgot. He walked up to a million strangers and made Kel do all the talking, just like he used to when they were small. And even though Sunny had spent the past four years rotting inside, somehow Kel had grown more confident than ever. He was just as utterly, instantly at ease as Sunny remembered.

You could make a sort of game of it. Pushing Kel’s buttons, pushing your luck. Pressing at the boundaries of his comfort zone to see where they would break. Of course Kel could find rapport with the anxious artist drawing landscapes in the park, or the boy on the bench with the dreamy green eyes. But what about those fashionable newlyweds lost in the throes of choice paralysis? Or the bearded old weirdo muttering to himself in the hardware aisle?

Sunny walked into the homes of total strangers just to see what Kel would say. He wasn’t doing it to hurt him. It was like Mari hiding spiders in Hero’s desk. It’s just so exciting, finding out what someone’s going to do. Never knowing what’s going to happen next.

“So that’s it?” Omori demands. “That’s why you left. Uncertainty? Surprise? You left because you wanted to lose control?”

Hm. Sunny wouldn’t have put it like that, but… yeah. Maybe, yeah. It sounds sort of right.

“But that isn’t fair!” Omori hisses, flaring hot. “You made me to protect you from change, and then you went and changed into someone who didn’t even want that!”

Sunny frowns. “Do you want to change?”

“No!!”

Hm. Maybe that was the wrong question. “Do you… want to want to change?”

“No!! Or—” Omori hesitates. “I—don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know if you could be here if I didn’t.”

…Hm.

“The others,” Omori says shortly. “They’re—different. From how you made them. They’re not just our friends anymore. They’re, like. People.”

(Ideally friends are people, but that probably won’t be very helpful right now.)

“It’s like…” Omori trails off. “Like they’re not bound by what happened. Or who they used to be. I don’t even know if Mari is our sister anymore, or if she’s just—” He slams one fist against the arm of the couch, burying his knife to the hilt in the faded upholstery. “I don’t know how to say it.”

Sunny knows how that is. “Just say whatever. Sometimes some of it is right.”

Omori lapses into silence, but Sunny knows how that is, too. He sits on the ground and waits.

A few minutes drift by before Omori opens his mouth. “…That story you told.”

Sunny blinks.

“About pissing yourself.”

Ah. Naturally.

Omori huffs a breath. “I don’t remember that.”

Well… of course not. When Sunny was in first grade, Omori didn’t exist.

“I’m supposed to be you,” Omori mutters. “Or, something that used to be you. A piece of you. Whatever. But I don’t even have any of your memories. I don’t remember growing up, or coming here or anything. I’ve been trying and trying, but the first thing I remember is just empty white. And a black hanging bulb. And hearing someone crying.”

Sunny frowns. “Do you want my memories?”

“No! I don’t know! I just want—anything! To know anything! What I’m supposed to be, or—who I’m supposed to…” He trails off. “I just want to know what I’m for.”

“I’m not sure people are for anything.”

“Maybe where you’re from,” Omori scoffs. “Not here. Anyway, I’m not a person.”

There’s a lot that Sunny doesn’t know, but that definitely doesn’t sound right. “You’re—”

“Don’t argue,” Omori spits. “I know what people are. They feel things, and grow, and—grow up. That’s why you left. Isn’t it? Because you wanted something real.”

Sunny hesitates. That’s probably true, but… it’s not the whole truth. But he doesn’t know how to say it.

Omori barks a laugh. “You made it so I couldn't change, and then you changed into someone who didn't want that. Not that I cared,” he adds, bitterly. “I still had my friends. But now they’re changing, too. And I thought… If I brought your stupid friends here and made them face themselves, like we did, then… maybe everything could go back to how it was. But it didn’t. They’re still changing. Everyone is changing, except me. Because that’s how you made me.” He bares his teeth, ablaze with sudden fury. “It isn’t fair! I hate you! I should hate you forever and ever! Till you die and ever after!”

For a second, Sunny is scared that he’s going to get stabbed again. But it only lasts a moment, and then Omori collapses back into his seat.

“After you left,” Omori says. Leaden, resigned. “I. Missed you. Isn’t that stupid? It’s not like you were good company. All you ever did was lay around and cry.”

“I don’t think it’s stupid,” Sunny says quietly.

“Hah. Right. Of course you’d want me to be as pathetic as you. I’m just a memory. Just a scar over something that’s already healed. Being here probably feels nostalgic.”

That’s… not entirely untrue. But saying so would probably also not be very helpful.

“You threw me away and I can’t even hate you,” Omori says. “Or resent you, or—miss you. Because that’s not how you made me. And even if I could, I—” He has to force the words through gritted teeth. “—don’t. Want to.” He barks a laugh. “All you ever gave me was your ugliest, broken-est parts and I still won’t throw them away, because it’s—all I have left. Because I don’t want to lose you. Even after you threw me away.”

“I didn’t throw you away.”

“You—” Omori trips over his tongue. “—What?”

You can read the rest of the finale here: ao3.org/works/45213322/chapters/129661372

#omori fanfic #headspace au #omori spoilers #timeskip #omori sunny #omori #closure #no ships

[sharknadoslutt]

So bcs I'm experiencing writers block, I started working on this Wizard!Bruno x Princess!Nayelli AU of Antisocial because I have nothing else consuming my brain 🤪 Since I'm almost done with my first fic, I've been outlining this new one and already started chapter one. So. I'm gonna info dump and see if anyone's interested💚🤗

Art belongs to @papayawhipped who heavily helped build the lore of this AU 🙏💕

So, this is obviously a very different magical take on the Encanto in which there are two different types of magic; Craft magic and Natural magic. There is craft magic. Think wizard, witches and their entire mystical world of wonderment. Spells, potions and mythical creatures. Craft is the kind of magic that is widely accepted by 'the real world'—The non-magic wielding world.

Natural magic is very rare, very pure and very powerful. This kind of magic is either hunted and drained for power, or hunted with the intention of being snuffed out. Examples of natural magic would be the Madrigal gifts.

The Encanto is a town within the enchanted mountain range that's been hidden since Pedro Madrigal's death.

He was a man with natural magic in his blood but who also had a strong passion for craft magic. When he was found out as having natural magic blood, Pedro was hunted down by dark-wizards. But Pedro sacrificed himself to protect his family and this act of true love bestowed his them with the protection of the Encanto, which has flourished in secret for fifty years.

Alma hated craft magic after this. Her beloved Pedro was targeted and killed by craft-users because of his natural gift. So all craft magic was banned from the Encanto. But Bruno was curious of his late Father's passion and studied craft magic behind his mother's back since his early teens. He thought, perhaps instead of only seeing horrible accidents and travesties in his visions, craft magic would help Bruno also see the good in the future!

But when Alma found out, she gave Bruno an ultimatum—Craft magic or his family.

So Bruno left his home and lived a life of learning and growing as a wizard. He did this while keeping his natural magic a secret from those around him, knowing the dangers of this getting out.

Through the years, Bruno fell into many jobs and alliances within the wizarding community. He'd even taken on a familiar of his own (A rat named Estrella). But ultimately, after a business partnership ends in betrayal, our Wizard Bruno secludes himself in a tower hidden within the Enchanted wood near the Ramos kingdom, dedicating his life to a lone study of magic.

Now the non-magical world also has it's own turmoil, on the brink of war between many powerful kingdoms. The Ramos Kingdom is seemingly at the center of it. Unbeknownst to the people, the kingdom is secretly adjoined to Wizard's Alley (A gateway to the mysterious wizarding world). King Javier Ramos' royal advisor, the Wizard Lucius, uses this to his advantage and has a sinister plot of his own in the works.

Due to the war, the Princess Nayelli Ramos has remained secluded in the castle for nearly a year in solitude. She has nothing but her cat, her library and her fantasies of an adventurous life beyond the castle walls (Princess Anna of Arendel Syndrome).

One fateful night, after falling asleep in the royal library, she wakes up to the Wizard Bruno sneaking into the library to peruse their famous selection of magic literature. For our Princess, it is love at first sight and she is determined to make the Wizard Bruno her new adventure.

What starts off as a sensual romance quickly turns into intense emotions and life and death steaks for the two. This is a love story that ends a war, brings our Bruno back to his family, and also brings the Madrigal's out of hiding. So... Yeah, that's what I've been working on

Have some more art~

To be clear - This will not be an Bruno X Reader fic, I'm trying something new and will have this told in 3rd person. Nayelli will be named unlike how I wrote her in my Antisocial fanfiction.

If anyone is interested, let me know, I'll tag you when it's up! Ill be posting on Ao3 but can link to tumblr. 18+ ONLY as this will have sexual content and mature themes. Uhh, thank you 💚

#Im so excited tf #hollyspeaks #my fic #bruno madrigal #encanto #encanto fanfiction #AU #wizard au #Bruno Madrigal x reader #Bruno Madrigal fanfiction #Encanto AU

[revsforgottenwar]

Shadows in Castle Town

Rev’s Forgotten War AU!

Rating: MA

Pairings: Link/Zelda

Tags:  angst, violence, swearing

WC: 1500

Two old friends meet up for a night of aggressive negotiations.

Castle town glowed dimly at night. Sconces mounted on the walls of the main squares, outside pubs and single candles in only a few houses marked the late time. The uneven rooftops sprung up in the sky like a jagged mountain range surrounded by high stone walls and towers, crowned by the enormous structure of the Castle at the north end of town. 

A figure stood silently in the shadow of a chimney stack, glancing across the moonlit roofs. They were dressed in tightly fitted armour, embellished wth the eye symbol of the sheikah, face cowled and blonde hair wrapped in cloth. A small elegant harp was similarly wrapped and strung across their back, and the sides of their thighs were covered in sharp kunai. They appeared to be a young man, but there was only a very small group of people who knew the truth. Beneath the cowl was Princess Zelda of Hyrule.

Lips twitched into a smirk as her knees bent before launching her body in a soundless run towards the edge of the roof. The lean and powerful muscles of her form propelled her across the empty void of an alley, landing noiselessly before springing forward again across the next roof. She cut through the air, the long wrapped braid of her hair whipping behind her and she leapt again and again. Up a wall, skimming a balcony, across an archway. Breaths coming strong yet even as she floated like a phantom through the night.

She was heading towards the west side of town, towards the large warehouses and dark twisting alleys that flanked the small abandoned quarry. Keeping an eye out for figures roaming the dark streets, she came to a stop on the roof of a dilapidated storehouse as she felt a warmth blossom in her left hand. It was a familiar feeling, her shard of the Triforce was calling out to one of it’s missing pieces that it could sense nearby. It was a joyful feeling.

Zelda was surprised that Link was tracking her, especially tonight when the moon was nearly full. Since his return to Hyrule four months ago, he would disappear out into the wilderness around the time of the full moon returning three days later as it began to wane. She knew about what happened in Termina, a place that she could find no evidence for existing. She was too logical a thinker to truely believe it did in fact exist, she could only pretend she believed the story and try and help him cope in the aftermath. The worst part was, he knew her well enough to know this truth, but too kind to challenge her.

She closed her eyes and focussed her senses on her environment. She could feel the city around her, tiny waves of magic that lapped the border between her world and the magical plane. Little spots of warmth that floated around torches, the bouncing wave of music that seemed to vibrate in a pub nearby. The blossom of light that bloomed within a cat that roamed in the gutters of the street below. Then the strong rhythmic pounding of the Triforce of Courage. 

Magic was alive and ever changing, the life-force of all things. The pieces of the Triforce all felt different. Power was painful, it scorched the air around it, suffocating and charging the air like lightning. But that was Power, pain and desire rolled into one. Simple to harness, but easy to be corrupted by. A siren’s song.

Wisdom by contrast was cool and calm. It was tranquil and not always easy to grasp. It took great concentration and restraint to focus on and manipulate. By nature she was headstrong and brash, in conflict with her chosen piece. But with time it was proving to be a calming force, slowing her down and clearing her head.

Courage felt like a thumping heartbeat, a punch of adrenaline to the system. You didn’t exactly harness it, it took control of you.  Ironically, it could not be wielded by the fearless, but only by those who were afraid but had the strength to move beyond it. The Triforce of Courage was unpredictable and dangerous. Especially now as it’s host was so plagued by demons and fear. Capable of triggering destructive power without intention. Pure defensive reaction.

Zelda opened her eyes and glanced in the directing of the thumping. Nestled amongst some scaffolding on an old watchtower was a hooded figure, slowly turning it’s head as it searched for her. Link had a strong natural connection to the magical plane, but she had been raised by the Sage of Shadow, taught to cloak her aura and appear almost invisible.

She stood up until her frame was bathed in moonlight and flared a pulse of magic from her Triforce, watching as his head snapped around immediately to look at her. She then made her way towards him, leaping silently once more across the roofs. 

She landed next to him and he pulled down his tatty hood revealing a wooden mask with painted lines on the cheeks and forehead. She sat down in front of him, cross legged and close enough that their knees touched. It’s how they both functioned these days, so equally touch-starved that they always made the most of contact.

“Hey, out for a midnight stroll?” she quietly asked as she pulled the cloth mask down to revel her mouth.

He pulled his own mask up so it rested on top of his head revealing his face. He looked tired as he always did, dark bags shadowed his sky blue eyes and caused the jagged scars on his cheeks and forehead to stand out prominently. He smiled softly before his hands started to move in a hesitant yet precise manner.

‘Night face s-m-u-g-g-l-e-r-s?’ he silently asked in Sheikah Sign.

She smiled and repeated his question back to him both verbal and in Sign

“Tonight are you facing the smugglers?”

He nodded and repeated the question back at her with her corrections. He always was a fast learner.

“My sources tell me that they are meeting tonight in the old quarry storehouse” She lightly patted the full looking purse attached to her belt. “I’m going to try and beat their employer’s price.”

‘Need help?’

“If you would like to, I can also manage on my own.” She had been for the past two years, but Link joining her had certainly made things more efficient. However the last thing he needed was to be pulled into another battle. He’d recently come out of a war, the battle trauma suffocating him slowly. It had taken a lot from him, including his voice as well as his sense of peace. As much as she wished he’d retire somewhere and live out a calm, tranquil life, she knew he wouldn’t for the same reasons she couldn’t.

Just because the War ended on paper, didn’t mean it ended for them. She couldn’t put down her weapons any more than he could. They were both two heavily scarred by memory and paranoia for that. Besides, she couldn’t give him up either. Princesses don’t retire to the country with humble common boys. It was selfish of her she knew, but when had she not been when he was involved. 

‘Who is … leader?’

“the Employer?”

He nodded in response.

“Lord Deacon Grent. He’s one of the key powerhouses on the Royal Council. He’s also trying to increase taxes on Necluda’s harvest while embezzling from the Treasury right under my Father’s nose.”

Link’s eyebrows shot up before he settled into an angry glare. 

“I know, but first I need to find out what he is using the rupees for, then i will bring him to heel.”

‘Tell… then Prison?’

“My Father considers him one of his most loyal friends, he will never listen to any evidence i bring forward. I need to break Grent’s operation and blackmail him until he’s under my control.  More malleable heads on the Council will be a benefit.”

Link looked away from her, concern obvious on his face.

“I know you don’t agree with my methods, but until i’m Queen I have no way of dealing with these issues. There is little honour in Court politics.”

He looked her in the eyes and she tried to ignore the agonising need for his approval. He was a far kinder and better person than she was, she’d committed enough dark deeds as Ganondorf’s agent during the forgotten war to consider her good nature forever blemished. The only redemption she felt she had was to make life better for her people.

‘I trust you. Always do good, for common people.’

She didn’t believe that was true, but she was trying. She smiled sadly back at him as she stood up.

“All right let’s go then.”

He rose to his feet, sliding his mask back down and pulled his hood up.

‘How you want play it?’

She covered her own face back up and cracked her knuckles as she surveyed the surrounding buildings.

“Same as usual. Intimidate then negotiate.”

They both disappeared into the shadows.

#loz #loz oot #link #zelda #zelink #forgottenwar AU #revWrites

[kazemiya]

Hi! It’s 🌈 anon hehe! How are you doing recently! I hope your doing ok🥰

I wanna share this huge brainrot I had abt Nagisa, like it was in my head the entire time during dinner and now. Idk if you could tell by my previous Nagisa mermaid au request but I love different au stuff ⁄(⁄ ⁄ ⁄ω⁄ ⁄ ⁄)⁄

Basically I’m thinking of like an gangster x rich kid au, but instead it’s reader being the gangster and Nagisa is the guy who somehow got himself involved.

“…Where is Ibara? Am I in the wrong location again?” Nagisa pondered as he stood in front of a dilapidated house. This definitely wasn’t the location he was meant to be at. Nagisa could already feel his head aching from Ibara’s scolding and nagging about how he should have taken a car.

Nagisa made an immediate turn and was about to leave when he heard a small grunt. Nagisa paused. It can’t be anything important, what could be more important than preventing Ibara’s scolding? He was about to quicken his pace when he heard a loud thump coming from an alley behind him. Now that surely is not just a cat. He could have just ignored the sound, but curiosity got the better of him, so he backtracked his steps to take a small glance into the alley.

The first impression he saw of you was how bright your eyes were. The dark alleyway and your injuries did nothing to dim the fiery light in your eyes. They resembles a cat’s eye, sharp and cautious. There was a deep cut at the side of your left arm, with crimson flowing out from the wound in a constant flow, the side of your hair m already mottled from dried blood. The gang shirt you once wore was ruined beyond recognition.

“…is everything alright?” Nagisa probed. Suddenly, your body twitched, and you lunged right at him. The two of you fell heavily to the ground as you held a knife above his head, if it weren’t for his idol training, he was sure that he wouldn’t have been able to stop you. “Hey!” He shouted at he tried to restrain you, resulting in a small scuffle on the floor. “ She’s not thinking straight..what do I do in this type of situation…” Nagisa gritted his teeth as he struggled to stop you from gouging out his stomach.

Soon, you slowly calmed down and started to regain clarity. You stood up and was about to leave before you felt a grab on your leg. “Your just going to leave?” Nagisa panted. He spent an entire half an hour struggling to hold you down, and you were just going to stand up and leave? You didn’t even spare a glance and was about to make your way before you heard pained groans,

“…can you at least-”

“I won’t owe you anything,” You sneered, “who told you to be so weak?”

Nagisa slightly cocked his head to the side in obvious confusion,

“…I wanted to ask if you know the way to XXX cafe…”

“…”

-at the cafe-

“What is the meaning of this! You were not only more than 72 minutes late, but there is the presence and smell of a stranger’s blood! Would you care to explain yourself, Your Excellency!” Ibara shouted, showing Nagisa into the back seat of the car and driving towards the dormitory. “…I had an accident.” Nagisa replied, aimlessly staring out of the window. “This is why I told you…” Ibara started to nag, but this time, Nagisa ignored him and gazed out of the window. As the streaks of scenery passes by, his thoughts were soon getting drowned out, and his mixed feelings continued to be locked inside his heart.

IM SORRY IF THIS IS BAD😭 ITS MY FIRST TIME WRITING IN A LONG WHILE AND NAGISA FEELS VERY OUT OF CHARACTER😭 Nonetheless I hope you like it and I hope you have a slay day🌈

-🌈anon

SHAKES YOU

🌈 ANON!!! OMG UR SO BIG BRAIN!!! AND YES AU SUPREMACY!!! Omg the badass reader is so cool and THIS CONCEPT OMG. Omg ganster x Rich kid is something I never considered before!!

Ok but it kinda reminded me of like what if gangster reader and Rick kid nagisa often met secretly at night, climbing into each other rooms. So there’s a bit of forbidden romance especially since nagisa is an idol. Ur fic also reminded me of that one princess mononoke scene.

^^

BUT 🌈 ANON DO U NOT HAVE A BLOG??? UR IDEAS PLS lmk your thoughts whenever you get any kind of thoughts I would gladly listen!!!

#꒰ა 🌈 anon ໒꒱ #kaze replies #ANON THIS IDEA #YK HOW MUCH I LOVE AUS

[caplanbuckybarnes]

Kill of the moment

Summary: Clint would do anything to make you feel safe

Pairing: mafia lord Clint Barton x female reader

Warnings: sexual content, flirting, mafia au, poker

You licked your lips as you felt his lips caressing the skin of your throat. “Clint,” you nearly moaned out before carding your hands through his hair and tugging gently to try and pry his mouth away from you. “It’s your turn baby.”

“These fuckers can wait, darlin’,” he mumbled against your against, one hand gripping your ass tightly, the other holding his cards in his hand. “You know you’re mine, right now. All mine.”

You chuckled with a soft roll of your eyes. Someone must have been trying to get an eyeful of your body. Your husband only ever acted so aggressively with you when he had caught someone trying to get a sneaky look at you or up your skirt. Whomever Clint had caught in the act was in for a total beating after the poker game was finished and the crowd surrounding his table had diminished. “Who is it this time, love?” you mumbled as you carded your hands through his hair. “What asshole would be foolish enough to check out a king’s wife without so much as a disregard for their own life?”

“I’m not too sure,” he mumbled against the material of the dress on your shoulder. “But there’s a man by the bar; I’ve been watching him. He’s new to this city. I’ve never seen him before. He’s been glancing this way for the last few minutes. Tell me if that would please my queen, if I handled him the way a king should handle their enemy?” He asked as he lifted his head and searched your face for any negative thoughts, any declination of his offering.

“Nothing would please your queen more, my love.” you pecked his lips and tucked a stray lock of hair behind his ear before kissing him on the lips hard and deep for a long moment as poker chips were thrown into the middle of the table. A moment later, Clint took a fold and excused himself from the table as he’d finally caught sight of the man that had been eyeing you up all night. He tapped your thigh and you stood up away from him, a light smirk pleasuring your lips.

He fixed his suit jacket before kissing your temple and skirting around you to glide over to the bar with grace. You turned around and watched him with joy filling your eyes as you sipped from your cocktail glass. The scene in front of you caused several heads to turn; the look of pure anger on Clint’s face was enough to have alley cats zipping away in fear.

You leaned your back against the poker table as Clint stepped up to a random bar patron; an older gentleman by the looks of it. He seemed too cocky for your taste, causing a concerned grimace to put a frown on your face as Clint’s calm demeanor diminished rapidly. A pointed look towards you for approval and once you had nodded, Clint gripped the man by the back of the head and slammed his face against the glass counter, causing it to shatter away in pieces on the carpeted floor along with the bar goer’s drinks as well.

Clint had built this casino for you when you had married a few years ago. You treasured it beyond anything he had ever done for you. You loved the money, the drugs, the alcohol that passed through the place every day. Business boomed, never having a dull day. Bar fights were common. Thieves were seldom. Respect was demanded by everyone that worked for your husband. He’d allow violence from the workers if they had felt even the slightest of offended- which hardly happened due to Clint’s reputation around the city.

Bodies were a constant trash pile in the dumpsters behind the club. Clint killed so many poor souls, it’s a miracle that he still felt anything but rage at this point in his life. But you, you were the reason he felt human at all. You were the reason he hadn’t gone over the edge of life yet. And for that, he was grateful. You meant everything to him and he would kill in order to prove that to anyone who so much as questioned his faith and loyalty to you. Clint didn’t tolerate assholes who disrespected his queen. He didn’t feel appreciated when some thug on the street had whistled to you, calling you out as if you were a dog being called to his owner. You were a human being and Clint would kill anyone who didn’t think that of you.

You adored his devotion to you. You adored how much he had protected you. You admired how skillful he was with a gun in his hand. You loved this man with every fiber of your being. You dedicated your life to him, and he to you.

You watched with intense eyes as Clint exchanged several words with the man, smiling, occasionally looking over his shoulder at you as the man did the same, even as blood trickled from his temple where shards of glass stuck out in odd angles. You hid a smirk behind the cocktail glass as Clint had suddenly grabbed the poor old man by the back of the neck and slammed his face against the bar top yet again, shattering the bar into pieces. He slammed the man’s head a few more times before standing up and casually fixing his tie on the way back over to you, bloody shirt and all.

“No more peeping tom, doll face.” He smirked, pulling you tightly to his body as he snapped his fingers to grab the attention of his henchmen. “Fellas, there’s a spill on the bar that needs to be wiped down. Do you mind?” He kissed you as two men strolled by him to dispose of the body.

#caplan writes #my writing #clint barton fics #Clint Barton x reader #Clint Barton imagines

[sapphire11]

Through Each Other’s Eyes

Tarlos Soulmate AU

I’ve just updated this story with a new chapter!! Getting so close to this one being completed. Only one more chapter and an epilogue left. eeekkkksjsfv!

Thank you for all the support I’ve received with this story!! 

Read Prologue here or the whole work on ao3 here

Chapter 6

Carlos POV

“What else have you seen of your soulmate?”

Those words echo in Carlos’ head for the next several days. He knows they’re important. A key to the puzzle that is TK Strand. He just can’t quite figure out what they mean, or more importantly why they seemed to mean so much to TK.

He’s obsessing about it though and as he moves through his days he finds himself conjuring up soulmate visions he’s had and connecting them to TK and what must have been TK’s life.

The early visions weren’t always joyful, but there was a youthful innocence to them and a desire to help.

Flashback

Toy fire trucks on a bedroom floor with adult hands wildly gesturing through an open doorway.

That same bedroom, full of boxes with neatly written descriptions of their contents and marked with dad’s or mom’s.

Tall buildings and busy streets surrounding a firehouse with large numbers displaying 252 on the side.

Skinny arms climbing a tree to rescue a cat and the impossibly far distance to the ground in the moments before he slipped and fell, protecting the cat the whole way down.

A hand reaching out to a young girl, helping her pick up a mess of spilled books on the floor while other students stood by and watched.

These visions gave way to heavier, darker, and sometimes painful ones as he got older.

A lonely bedroom with colorless walls, empty of all signs of life or love.

White pills in a shaking palm in a dingy bathroom stall.

Chaotic nightclubs filled with faceless people and more alcohol than Carlos’ ever had.

House parties with swirling ceilings and shaking floors.

Dark alleys with shifting feet and shaking arms that always felt like they were desperately aching for something to hold on to.

Then finally the visions began to feel more like healing, and renewal. There was revival of the kind, generous soul Carlos knows always existed underneath the hard times.

A beautiful sunset over a vast ocean. Gently rolling waves and birds soaring overhead.

The steady cadence of running through central park with a friendly hand waving to an older couple sitting on a park bench near the entrance.

Flashes of the edge of a firefighter’s turnout coat while calm steady hands help comfort a vehicle accident victim during a rescue.

The soft smile of the man’s partner as they sat close together, bodies touching, hands roaming.

A ring, a promise for a future, hope.

The more Carlos thinks about it all the more he cherishes the pieces of TK he’s been given and the more he feels like he can’t pretend anymore. He needs TK to know that he is everything he’s ever wanted. All the pieces of him.

It’s either really bad luck or the universe sending him a message when their shifts don’t seem to align for a week after Carlos has decided to tell TK everything. Then when they finally get a break, Carlos gets sucked into helping Michelle with Iris’ case, because he’s always going to be there for Michelle.

That’s how It’s going on three weeks of not being able to see TK when the uncertainty begins eating at his gut. Surprisingly TK has still been texting, even if it’s gone back to the impersonal messages of memes and short answers. Carlos is grateful that he’s getting any communication from TK at all with the way TK ran out of his house, but he wants more and he decides to reach for it.

Carlos has just gotten off shift on a random Tuesday when his phone buzzes with a new message. He’s quick to grab it out of his pocket, knowing that the 126 squad is also coming off shift and hoping beyond hope that TK is reaching out.

Which is why he’s disappointed to see Paul’s name pop up on his phone. Then he feels guilty because he really likes Paul. They’ve been texting a bit more lately and he thinks they could become good friends. When he reads the text his guilt morphs into concern and he’s quick to reply.

Paul: I need help with something. Have time to grab a drink?

Carlos: I see your drink and raise you the best tacos in Texas? Meet now?

Paul: We’re off in an hour, meet at 8?

Carlos: Yup, I’ll send you the address.

Paul: Thanks man I appreciate it.

Carlos gets there a little early, feeling anxious about what Paul needs help with and also jittery with the want to maybe try and see TK tonight still.

Paul joins him right at 8:00 as promised and they greet each other before going to get their food. It’s not long before they’re sitting across from each other at a table and Paul wastes no time getting started talking.

“Okay, what’s going on with you and TK?”

Carlos coughs as he chokes on a bite of his taco, not expecting that to be the first question on Paul’s mind. He takes a slow drink of his water using the moment as an excuse to come up with an appropriate answer.

“We’re friends.” Is the best he’s got though and Paul rolls his eyes so hard he could compete with TK, who Carlos has come to think of as the king of eye rolls.

“Man, you forget I was at that club with you guys and that was months ago. I know you’ve been hanging out, so you wanna try that again.”

Paul’s steady voice soothes Carlos’ frayed nerves at having to confront what he’s been thinking about and before he can stop himself he’s blurting it all out. “I think we’re soulmates Paul, but TK said he didn’t believe in soulmates and then the last time I saw him everything was fine until he started asking weird questions about my soulmate visions.”

Paul’s eyebrows have both risen and he’s holding his free hand up in the universal slow down gesture. “Whoa man, slow down, that’s a lot.” Then Paul pauses for a second looking conflicted.

“What?” Carlos snaps, not really meaning to, but feeling on edge with this whole damn thing.

“Are you totally sure about the soulmate thing?” Paul asks cautiously.

It’s honestly not what he expected. Of course he’s sure about the soulmate thing, but the way Paul says it gives him pause. “Why? What do you know?”

Paul shakes his head, “This really isn’t my place, but the bad break-up TK had, it wasn’t just any old break-up”

“I know TK said it was nuclear bad” Carlos affirms.

“What else has TK said about it?” Paul asks slowly, meaningfully.

Carlos can only shrug, “Not much, I haven’t asked.” He feels a little guilty for not asking, but soulmates were a touchy subject for him.

“Maybe you oughta.” Is Paul’s pointed reply.

“Yeah, maybe.” Carlos mutters, thinking about how much he needs to ask TK the next time he can get him to agree to see him. “Shit, sorry we got distracted with my shit right away Paul, what is it you needed my help with?”

“Oh.” Paul says looking a little sheepish. “To make up with TK so he stops walking around the firehouse looking like a lost puppy, snapping at anyone who tries to help. Seriously man, I think he actually growled at Judd the last time he suggested he just call you.”

Carlos puts his head in his hands, “Paul, you are so not helping, in fact you’re interrupting. I was planning on trying to get together with TK tonight after y’alls shift.”

This causes Paul to chuckle and look a little guilty at the same time when Carlos looks up at him. After that Paul is quick to clear his spot at the table and give Carlos a friendly pat on the shoulder when he stands up. “Good luck” Paul says with a grin and he’s gone.

Carlos just shakes his head, a little disgruntled at Paul for luring him here and making him give up his best taco location, only for Paul to tell him to talk to TK. It’s getting late now though and Carlos feels like he needs a moment to decipher Paul’s mysterious message about talking to TK about his nuclear bad break-up.

TK POV

The past few weeks TK has felt like he’s back in that grain sinking slowly this time. Unfortunately, he still has no clue how to get himself out before he goes under. It’s been precisely 20 days since he ran out of Carlos’ house after figuring out that he had his soulmate's arms wrapped around him on that couch.

He’s had time to play every conversation about soulmates they ever had through his head about ten times, but he keeps getting stuck on three things.

One. Carlos thinks soulmates are overrated.

Two. Carlos saw his soulmate get engaged.

And three. Carlos knows way too much about the dark within TK’s soul.

He laughed a little hysterically, and not in a good way, the first time he realized that Carlos’ soulmate vision of his failed engagement must have ended sometime before the failed part and that the vision TK had the next morning, while comforting for TK, was probably Carlos grieving his loss. He has to admit the irony of how close Carlos actually came to losing his soulmate that day and how unaware he is of that fact.

TK knows he’s spiraling because Carlos is everything he always wished his soulmate to be. He’s kind, sweet, sexy, devoted, and gives so much love. The idea of all that directed at him is absolutely terrifying.

TK doesn’t know if he even knows how to be loved like that. He’s gotten glimpses of the way Carlos gives his whole self to everything he commits to and it’s beautiful.

It’s also terrifying because he doesn’t know what Carlos has seen of his life in the visions. He’s probably seen at least some of his fuck-ups. TK knows there were many years with more bad memories than good so the chances are high that Carlos has seen the bad.

What scares him the most though is that he isn’t ready to lose Carlos. Which seems like an inevitability once Carlos finds out that they’re soulmates and TK is such a broken mess of a man.

He also isn’t ready for Carlos to look at him differently, the way he knows he will when he realizes all those dark pieces are actually a part of TK.

So TK did what he does best and he ran. He regrets it. That doesn’t mean he knows how to overcome it though.

It’s a miracle when the universe decides to give him a little bit of a break from having to confront the situation. Between his dad’s stupid go at the CPAT and Carlos helping Michelle with her sister’s case, there isn’t a lot of free time between them. It makes it easier for TK to keep avoiding the truth.

But TK misses Carlos and the connection they had been building. It’s that emotion that TK leans on when he texts Carlos a funny meme he saw while on his phone at work or shares a story of the crazy stunt Marjan pulled for a rescue. He’s even a little proud of himself that he hasn’t run completely.

He’s coming off of a 24-hour shift and looking forward to having the next 48-hours off, TK is sad when his last text to Carlos goes unanswered. He’d worked up the courage to try calling Carlos, maybe hoping to chat for a bit before he falls off to sleep, when his phone dings with a new notification.

Carlos: Can we grab lunch tomorrow? I think we should talk.  

TK’s heart soars and then drops reading the message, leaving him feeling like he’s riding a really bad rollercoaster. There’s not really anything out of the ordinary about the message, but it’s lacking the playful edge that their texts usually have. Especially when talking about getting together. No, this text is serious. It makes TK’s heart clench and he has to take a deep breath to calm himself down before he can reply.

TK: That’d be good. Name the place, I’ll be there .

TK waits anxiously for the reply back, he sees the three little bubbles pop up and disappear a few times before finally a message comes through.

Carlos: Pick you up at noon?

TK feels a little thrown by the idea of Carlos picking him up, but he replies in the affirmative and decides to hold on to the little hope it gives him that maybe Carlos is looking forward to seeing him. It takes TK a long time to fall asleep; his mind is cluttered with everything Carlos could think they need to talk about and the one thing TK knows he needs to tell him.

****

TK’s out the door the next day as soon as he sees Carlos’ car pull into his driveway. He’s been anxious all morning and not even getting to sleep in and having a good workout helped calm him down. Once seated in the passenger seat of Carlos’ car his breath is punched out of him with how much he’s missed this man. Carlos leans over the center console to give TK a soft kiss on his cheek murmuring hey in his ear.

“Hey.” TK says back with a bright smile on his face, the energy he’s getting from Carlos doesn’t feel bad, maybe a little anxious, but TK doesn’t blame him, it’s not like they left off on the best foot last time.

“I found a new food truck last shift, feel like trying it?” Carlos asks.

TK nods, excited that Carlos is willing to share something new with him. He wants to share everything with him.

The drive there is comfortable. They share everything they’ve missed from being apart for the last few weeks and there is no mention of any uncomfortable topics or unfortunate happenings. By the time they’re seated at a table with several items of food in front of each of them TK is ready to burst with nervous energy. He can feel his leg bouncing wildly under the table, but he doesn’t think Carlos notices until his calf is trapped between Carlos' two solid legs.

“Wanna tell me what’s on your mind?” Carlos asks with an amused grin, clearly he’s not going to let TK get off scotch free from their last encounter. However, even though TK knows Carlos probably is not prepared for it, TK can't help what comes out of his mouth next.

“I think you’re my soulmate.”

Carlos’ eyes snap up to him from where they had shifted to the food in front of him and TK feels his face heat up at the intensity of the gaze centered on him. “I know you’re my soulmate.” comes Carlos’ unexpected reply.

TK’s mind freezes, just goes completely blank, unable to process the information. “You know?” he gets out shakily, trying to take a deep breath and failing miserably.

With TK’s gaze solely focused on Carlos’ face he misses the hand that slowly reaches across the table to touch his own gently and he flinches back. He doesn’t miss the way Carlos’ face falls at TK’s reaction to his touch. TK wishes he could move, take Carlos’ hand, reassure him, but he’s still stuck. Frozen. His brain keeps circling on the fact that Carlos’ knows.

“How long?” he whispers, barely loud enough to hear and he’s sure Carlos won’t catch it, but of course he does. The other man is completely focused on him right now.

“Since the night you told me about your dad’s cancer.” The words float softly across the table, but they’re still a dagger to TK’s fragile heart.

He chokes out a disbelieving sound. “You …. No … But dinner … “ TK can’t complete a coherent thought right now to express how confused he is. If Carlos has known all this time why didn’t he say something. Has he been keeping this thing up between them out of pity. Has he seen how messed up TK is and feel bad for him?

“TK breathe.” Carlos commands before he’s settling onto the bench seat next to him. TK sucks in a sharp breath at both the command and the surprise at their sudden proximity. “That’s it, try another.” Carlos coaxes gently, tentatively lifting a hand to run it up and down TK’s back. The movement is soothing and helps remind TK to keep breathing as he tries to collect his thoughts.

It’s a long few moments of them just existing in each other’s space. It’s all TK’s wanted for weeks, but it’s tainted.

“You said you know.” He says quietly.

Carlos knows him well enough by now to hear the question in his voice. “Yes.” he answers back with conviction.

“How?” TK asks, sounding small even to his own ears.

“Your pendant.”

That answer startles TK as he unconsciously reaches for the necklace that never leaves his neck. TK’s not sure what Carlos means, if he’s seen this pendant in a vision, surely he should have known sooner than that night. He knows Carlos has seen him in little else beside it several times.

“The number 252.” Carlos explains further. “I saw the firehouse in New York, I just didn’t realize it was the firehouse until that night when I saw your pendant closer.”

It’s still all a little confusing to TK, he still doesn’t quite understand how and when Carlos supposedly put all the pieces together. There is also plenty of room for all the usual doubts to come creeping into his head about what else Carlos must have seen.

“What else?” TK blurts out before he can hold back and Carlos sighs, but surprisingly enough answers like he was expecting this question.

“I’ve been seeing through your eyes since I was eight.” Carlos says and this causes TK to pull in a sharp breath. That’s so many more years of his life than TK thought was possible. “Yeah, everyone else always thought it was strange too.” Carlos continues, except TK doesn’t think it’s strange, he just thinks that’s a lot more years than he’s had.

“I didn’t get my first one until I was 16.” TK tells him, and he can’t help but feel a little jealous.

Carlos looks over at him, his eyes scanning his whole face, “that’s pretty late for soulmate visions to start.” is what he says carefully.

TK bites down on his bottom lip harder than he intended and Carlos hand comes up his thumb gently pulling TK’s lip from between his teeth. The touch is calming and exhilarating all at once. He can only shrug his shoulders in response. He doesn’t know how these things work any more than Carlos does. A part of him has always believed that it was the universe telling him he didn’t deserve a soulmate, or maybe that his soulmate deserved better than him. A different part of him, the one he wanted to believe in this moment, thought when his first vision came in one of his loneliest moments it felt more like it was the universe giving him hope.

“So now you know why I know,” Carlos starts hesitantly, “why do you think we’re soulmates?”

“Your hands.” TK blurts out without thinking about it and he can feel the heat rise on his cheeks at the look Carlos gives him full of heat and tenderness. It’s clearly not what Carlos was expecting him to say.

“My hands.” Carlos says back amused.

TK buries his face in his own hands with a groan. “No, I mean, yes, but it’s just the only part of you I ever saw in the visions … and they’re nice hands.” He finished with a mumble.

Carlos chuckles softly and it’s a pleasant sound, a happy sound. TK feels heat blossom in his chest thinking he could bring that happiness to Carlos with something as simple as a compliment about his hands.

“You think they’re nice?” Carlos jokes softly.

“Shut up.” TK replies affectionately back.

They lapse into a comfortable silence for several minutes as they finally start to eat their lunch side by side now. It gives TK time to take in all the information he’s learned, and his brain finally catches up with the fact that when Carlos was eight TK would have been six or seven, the year that everything changed for TK. He’s also still incredibly curious about what Carlos has seen in his visions. It doesn’t seem like Carlos is ready to run in the other direction any time soon, so TK figures that the visions must have been kind to them both.

Instead of asking any of the questions running through his mind he chooses to lean into the warmth of Carlos’ arm as it brushes against his while they eat. Carlos ended up sitting on his left side and their elbows clash with each movement, but it feels right. It’s like something has finally aligned for TK and maybe he’s ready to take the risk. That feeling evaporates when Carlos breaks the silence.

“You asked me what I’ve seen of my soulmate.” Carlos says, turning to meet TK’s gaze. TK nods slowly, torn between wanting to know, and wanting to exist in this peace they’ve found. Carlos makes the decision for him though when he starts talking again.

“As I said, I was eight when the soulmate visions started, and the first one was, well I’m not going to lie it was devastating.” Carlos’ voice is filled with sadness and pain, and his pitch changes as he reaches for TK’s hand lying on the table.

“9/11” TK guesses, with a sinking feeling in his stomach.

Carlos’ next breath is heavy, “9/11” he confirms. TK can feel how he’s starting to fold in on himself. Doubting the thought that the universe would ever bless him with the good karma of Carlos not seeing his worst moments. It seems that with this one vision all of TK’s worst fears are being confirmed.

“So you asked me what I saw of my soulmate.” Carlos continues.

“I saw my soulmate live a tragedy.” Carlos places his palm on TK’s cheek, dark brown eyes soft.

“But then, I saw my soulmate’s youthful energy.” Carlos’ smile is sweet as he continues.

“I saw my soulmate’s desire to help.” The hand on TK’s cheek has migrated down to his neck. Fingers slowly stroking over his pulse which has begun to pound in his ears.

“I saw my soulmate’s kindness.” Carlos’ hand lands on TK’s chest right over his heart.

“And yes I saw my soulmate struggle, but there is absolutely no shame in that struggle.” Carlos admits softly, cautiously. One hand gripped tight to TK’s, the other palm splayed on his chest, grounding him in the moment and when Carlos smiles at him now, it’s wide with what TK could swear is pride and love.

“You know what came after, what I saw that really clinched my heart?” TK shakes his head, he has no idea what Carlos could have seen to inspire any good thoughts.

“I saw my soulmate grow in spite of that struggle.”

“I saw my soulmate’s strength in the face of everything.”

“I saw my soulmate persevere, hope, love, and survive.”

The words are too much for TK. They’re everything he could ever hope for and somehow he still can’t believe that they’re being directed at him. He blinks and realizes tears have gathered in his eyes without him even realizing. Carlos’ hands come up to cup his cheeks, thumbs gently wiping away the tears that fall. Soft lips press against TK’s forehead and TK falls against the strong chest in front of him. They sit like that for several long moments. TK breathing deeply, taking in the smell of Carlos’ aftershave and the feel of his hands rubbing his back.

When he pulls away he’s surprised to find tears in Carlos’ eyes too.

“That …” TK has to clear his throat, “That was a lot.” he manages. “I’m not really sure what to say.”

“Say you’ll be my soulmate.” Carlos asks like a prayer.

“I … I think I need some time.” TK manages, watching the way Carlos’ eyebrows lower like they do when he's upset and how Carlos’ jaw tightens even as he attempts to give him a soft smile that is more of a grimace.

This has TK continuing in a rush while reaching out to connect their hands again. “This isn’t me running, not this time. I just … this is a lot.” He huffs out, unsatisfied with that reply, but without any other words to describe how he’s feeling. “I just need some time to do this right, because you deserve that.”

It looks like Carlos is about to argue with him, but TK shakes his head, “ Please. ” he begs. Hoping against all hope that he hasn’t used up all the patience this incredible man in front of him has.

“Okay,” Carlos whispers, “As long as I know I’ll get to have you, I can wait.”

With that agreed upon TK shifts to lean up towards Carlos, slowly so the other man can move away if he wants, he brings their lips together. It’s a promise from TK that he isn’t running, not this time.

#911 lone star #Tarlos #soulmate au #fic writer #fanfiction #tk strand #carlos reyes

[peonierose]

Beyond

Book: Open Heart / Harry Potter AU

Characters shown in this AU: Bryce Lahela, Luna Auclair, Keiki Lahela and Maxine

Side note: I don’t own Bryce Lahela and Keiki Lahela, they belong to Pixelberry, I’m merely borrowing them for the sake of this story. Luna and Maxine are creations of my own.

Authors note: I couldn’t do it sooner. Since I was really busy. But these kinds of things really relax me.

Thank you @jamespotterthefirst for providing me with this template, I had so much fun doing this 😍🤗

More under the cut.

The name of Luna‘s cat is snow, because winter is her favorite season, when everything turns into a winter wonderland at Hogwarts. That’s also the time she stumbled onto a cat, which was hurt, starved and shivering in the cold, so she nursed it back to health, and Snow became her best friend.

Luna‘s patronus is an otter. Otters are a symbol of life and purification. They’re extremely playful and curious, they’re also associated with friendship. Luna was often found sound asleep, while still holding her wand.

She loves watching and playing quidditch, visiting Weasley‘s Wizard Wheezes in Diagon Alley, going out for a butter beer with friends. Trying out various spells, especially Lingardium Leviosa. Potions is her favorite subject, and she just loves Professor Sprout, she thinks she’s energetic and just amazing.

Luna is a pureblood and her family doesn’t like that she dates outside of her her lineage, because they think she shouldn’t be seen seen with anyone who isn’t a pureblood. Which Luna thinks is total bullshit, and so when she caught sight of Bryce telling funny stories surrounded by his friends, she had to try and ask him out, and so she did. Pureblood rules be damned.

As you can see Bryce’s best furry friend is an hermelin and her name is Stella. Keiki often says Stella is mean, to which Bryce replied she’s got taste and doesn’t like everyone.

To have the stag as a patronus symbolizes strength. A person with this patronus usually has an inclination for heroism and nobility. They’re very confident in their capabilities. They hold pride in their actions and beliefs.

He always loved animals. Contrary to popular belief magical creatures are just misunderstood. He thinks animals are sometimes better than people. He loves hippogriffs, and griffins. Those are among his favorite.

He thinks Madame Hooch is a badass and loves her lessons. He has a huge amount of respect for her.

He might be popular, but he never really craved the attention. He actually wants to have a small circle of friends who like him for him, and not because they want something in return.

When he and Luna met for the first time he thought she wouldn’t want to have anything to do with him, because people told stories how she looks down at everyone. But that couldn’t be farther away from the truth. She’s very easy-going, but protects her friends fiercely.

Keikis patronus is a panther which symbolizes a person who is highly artistic and intuitive. Sometimes they get a bit aggressive. They’re capable of having a lot of power, but they’re often solitary people.

Keiki found her group of friends, but also likes to hang out with her brother and his friends.

Keiki and her fox Martin, are inseparable. Though Martin and Benedict, Maxine’s little friend tend to get into a ”cat and mouse thing“.

Nothing to see here, it’s just me Benedict hanging around in Maxine’s coat pocket so I don’t get cold.

Maxine is more of a loner. Being sorted into Slytherin does that. Even though we all know being sorted into a hat doesn’t mean a bad thing. One time Luna caught some students tormenting Maxine, and got between them. She might not be tall or strong, but nobody makes someone feel smaller or get them down. Nobody likes a bully.

Maxine’s patronus is a bear. They’re capable of great strength and confidence. They are advocates against adversity and often take action in causes they believe in. People with the bear as a patronus, are often considered to be natural leaders.

Maxine wants to work in the Ministry of Magic and become an Auror, despite being a Slytherin.

Thank you for reading, sharing and liking 💚

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#Harry Potter AU #Luna Auclair #Bryce Lahela #Keiki Lahela #Maxine #Open Heart

[heresathreebee]

Old Stomping Ground

[Ava Starr X Female Reader]

Summary: One of the good things to come out of constant alien invasions are the abandoned ruins of New York, and you’re fixing to show Ava your favorite place. Previous Masterlist Next

Tag(s): 13+ | can be reader gender and race neutral reader but is written with woc readers in mind, no-snap au, post-Ant Man and the Wasp, Ava and reader on an adventure in post Avenger's New York, homelessness, alien trees and the power of community.

AN: no-snap au, post-Ant Man and the Wasp. No beta, we die like men. Just you and Ava having a short adventure.

You took three days off of work for this one. Packed two backpacks with food, water, clothes, and other supplies. Bedrolls and bug spray and hiking poles. Ava laughed at your enthusiasm but she seemed to vibrate with excitement right along with you. 

"Can you at least tell me where we're going," she pleaded. 

You ran through the end of the checklist for the third time, trying to be extra careful now that you wouldn't be hoofing it solo. You dodged the question expertly with a "it's not far and it's not dangerous so hush! Learn to enjoy the mystery, babe." 

Ava rolled her eyes playfully but stopped asking and let you finish. After that you ate a hearty breakfast and began your journey north by northwest. In the taxi, your girlfriend's eyes darted from building to building as you turned on every street and you mentally gave up on scolding her. She was too pragmatic to allow for that level of trust yet. 

You were surprised that it took her until you passed the ruins of the daycare you once attended that she whipped her head around to whisper, "is this… Leviathan alley?" 

You shush her but can't keep the excited grin from your face. "It's a bit more than just an alley." 

Once SHIELD was finished stripping for parts and gutting the cybernetically enhanced alien creature left behind in the Battle of New York, the rest was abandoned. The city's been planning to clean up and rebuild but there are scores in the earth where the leviathan crashed and crumbling, precarious buildings that need to be brought down first in the safest way possible. While the city’s been debating how to deal with the destruction, the poor and destitute had moved in and discovered the blood of the chitauri has some very interesting properties. 

"It's like it changes the property of concrete," you explained, climbing over rubble and reaching back to pull her up, "uhg– breaks it down into some kind of hyper fertilizer. There's this copse of trees growing where we think the stomach was and I think in its natural habitat, the creature was probably an omnivore of sorts and may have swallowed thousands of seeds–" 

"That's all very fascinating dear, could you please take this?" Ava shoves a canteen into your hands and cups your hands to bring it closer to your mouth. You've climbed for what feels like miles and hey, you are pretty parched. "Think we'd better rest and eat, maybe look for a safe place to set up camp and… oh, look over there!" 

Ava's sudden whisper makes you turn. It's green in that direction, though this 'alley' is shrouded in darkness due to the dome made from the spine and ribs of the leviathan, the sprigs seem to grow just fine, becoming taller as they moved farther away from you until they began to develop woody stalks and trunks. 

"That's the forest you were talking about," Ava whispered in awe. “I wanna get a closer look.” 

You gently caught her arm. “Camp first, eat. It’ll still be here tomorrow.” 

~ 

Ava didn’t expect you to take her into an encampment. There were two dozen people in tents, an open grill going and laughter. They seemed to recognize you. It was mostly older adults, a few elderly people wrapped in thick blankets and teens walking around asking anyone needed drinks. You grabbed the blanket from your pack and wrapped Ava in it as soon as she found a seat on a slab of concrete. 

"Comfy?" 

Ava smiled up at you, taking the proffered fruit slice from you. "Very." 

She examined the strange fruit. It had a thin violet skin with a spongy white inner layer and pink juice with black seeds  dripping from it. She leabed over your shoulder get a look at the fruit as a whole, and it seemed the pink goop was loose inside the fruit similar to a coconut. 

"Are these from the trees," she asked. 

"Yeah, they're edible don't worry. No side effects we've seen," you assure. 

Ava nods but as she's licking the tangy pink juice you continue, "well except for Nadia but she's a mutant." 

Ava flicks worried green eyes at you and slowly takes the fruit from her mouth. She's already swallowed on reflex so there's no turning back now, only managing whatever weird things would come next. 

"Uh… what do you mean by that?" 

You blink at Ava. "Oh it's not, like, bad or anything. Right, Nadia?" 

A dark skinned girl in an orange beanie looked up from her phone. "What?" 

"Tauri makes you, what, gassy?" 

The man on the grill threw his head back in a laugh and Nadia kicked a rock at you. "Ha hah, you're everybody's favorite clown in the circus. It doesn't make me gassy, you jerk, it makes me smell like roses actually." 

"Oh," Ava said, "that's all?" 

You and Nadia shared a knowing look. "It's strong. Not overpowering but strong like you've got your nose buried in a whole bouquet of them." 

"And your fingers tingle and you make sparkles– " 

"Nadia I think that's just you, baby!" 

People laughed and the conversation died down. Ava let the slip of tauri fruit linger in her grasp until you gently pried it out and ate it yourself. You were side eyeing her but kept your question to yourself and eventually Ava was able to relax. She fell asleep during Nadia's uncle Rodney's story with her head on your shoulder and dreamed of violet things. Violet dresses, violet paint, violet fires, and violet sprigs. 

All you could dream of was the smell of roses so close and so thick you could touch it. 

~

The walk through the natural path as the trees got thicker finally prompted Ava to ask the question that's been plaguing her. "How do you know them? Are they family?" 

You cast a quick glance over your shoulder and slowed your pace to match hers as your fingers tapped the straps of your backpack nervously. "Sort of. They were family when I had no home to go to. Then I got a job with enough money and a stupid good deal on my apartment because I had no priors. 

"Rodney and Jules and some of the others prefer it out here with the forest. Some of them have nowhere else to go or no way to take care of themselves. Nadia's been kicked out of every home she's ever been to, but she won't go to that gifted school for mutants in Westchester county. Can't say I blame her either." 

"School for mutants, eh," Ava said as she trudged on, "interesting." 

You walked along in silence, drinking in the inviting quiet of the forest and the tiny chirps and peeps of its new inhabitants. You'd almost say it would be a shame to tear this place down knowing it's a new natural habitat, but you know New York had a hundred bigger and more pressing issues to deal with right now. As long as any capitalist moguls kept their eyes elsewhere, the new jungle should be fine. 

As the forest becomes denser, you have to pull a rechargeable flashlight out to see the ground beneath you. Black bugs crawl under and over the brush and fallen twigs, and something no bigger than a cat scuttles away out of the path of the light. Ava puts a hand on your arm and you open your mouth to assure her you'd protect her, but as you look at her you realize she's ready to protect you. Arm poised out and eyes darting around for signs of sudden movement from the brush. 

You walk in silence for what feels like an fantastic eternity but when you look at the canopy you stop yourself. Ava looks up to, gently taking a hold of your hand to keep you close and it sends tingles up your arm. She rarely reaches for you but she seems to be growing more and more confident of it. 

Light dances beyond the thicket of the leaves. Green and gold flashes as a soft breeze creates gaps beyond the chitauri rib ceiling and every time a light flashes you feel warmth on your skin like soft little kisses. 

Something wooden creaks, and that creaking quickly turns to snapping. You unconsciously squeeze Ava's fingers as you spot a black tree trunk beginning to fall towards you. Suddenly, Ava's arms are around you and she pulls you down into a duck. 

Everything happens so fast it blinds you. You can't see, can only feel as shivers of warmth and cold jitter through your entire being, drowning you into sensations you've never felt before. It makes you feel fear more than anything. Is this how you die? Cowering? 

When the sounds of falling trees stop, there is only the wind and the rush of Ava's windbreaker against yours. You test your fingers to see if they still work and dig them into her back. Nothing broken, you're still standing if gravity is correct. 

She finally lets you lift your head from her embrace and survey the scene. That tree opened a spot in the canopy for more natural light to pour in which is good because your flashlight was lost among the thick bramble bushes. 

Ava brushes your forehead. "Are you OK?" 

It must be a trick of the light but she looks like she's shimmering. Perhaps you hit your head or something but it seems like you never fell. Your standing just beside the fallen tree but you could have sworn you'd almost felt it go through you. And then…

And then there was the smell of roses. 

"I'm fine," you say at last. "Let's get back, probably shouldn't have come here by ourselves anyways…" 

Ava gives you a look, it almost looks like trepidation. You steel your resolve and press on to retrace your steps, knowing you had a lot of walking to do before you would exit the treeline. 

Ava has powers and you're ok with that. You'll just let her tell you in her own time. 

#three bees writing #ava starr #ava starr x female reader #ava starr x reader #marvel #antman and the wasp #black reader insert #🐝🐝🐝✒

[crossroadsfossil]

Sunburns

Summary:

Dabi used to have a soulmark on his wrist. He didn’t have one anymore. It had burned off sometime during his teenage years and he hadn’t thought of it since. No longer having a mark didn’t mean he lost his soulmate, however. He still felt them. He was one of those pairs that shared pain and shared pleasure.

The two of them shared both often enough that Dabi had a pretty good idea what sort of man his other half was. Reckless and selfish and covered in as many hurts as Dabi was.

Dabi prayed to gods he didn’t believe in that they would never, ever meet in this lifetime or the next.

A03 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31346459

Prompt: Soulmates

Tags: Soulmate au, Soulmates are different for everyone but dabi has soulmate mark and soulmate pain-sharing, fun right?, oblivious dabi, not so oblivious hawks

---------------------------------------------

Dabi knows he has a soulmate.

Some people are born with marks. He was not, and it was something his mother told him was a good thing.

He didn’t remember when he got his mark- he just remembers it was sometime before his hair had faded fully to white. It was a small mark, on the inside of his left wrist.

The mark was gone now, having burnt away with the rest of his skin, but it used to be a small, black diamond. Small enough that you could mistake it for a mole or a freckle. It’s probably for the best that it was small. His father would have burnt if off in the hopes that he would forget it.

He rubbed a thumb over where the mark used to be, catching on one of the staples there and sending a familiar zing of pain up his arm.

That was another thing.

He knew he had a soulmate; he knew they could feel his pain. He’d felt theirs often enough growing up.

Hunger pains. Pricking needles in his toes and fingers, not unlike when Fuyumi lost control of her quirk and had almost frozen his fingers. There were times when parts of him ached- throbbing bruises that weren’t his own and backaches. He hated the backaches the most. They weren’t severe, but they felt much like the growing pains he’d had as a teenager, or those long months after the incident on the mountain when he was growing the worst of his muscles back. No matter how good his back-alley doctor was, she couldn’t do much to ease those deep aches.

A shadow crossed overhead, blocking out the light pollution and the dim glow from a nearby building. He glanced up, following the form as the figure banked and came toward him, wings pushing backwards to slow his descent before landing with that strange little hop of his.

“Hey, firebug.” Hawks greeted, wings held awkwardly as the hero shrugged off a backpack.

“What do you want?” Dabi asked, not getting up from his seat. Parts of him were overheating, a combination of the low-fever he had been fighting the entire week combined with the overuse of his quirk from a fight earlier that day.

“To see my favorite asshole.” Hawks said, legs tucking under him as he sat down in front of Dabi, pulling things out of his bag. It took a moment for Dabi to focus on what, exactly, Hawks had been pulling out, but once he had, he realized it was medical supplies and what looked like food. Hawks gestured for Dabi to hold out his arms.

Dabi flipped him off.

“Seriously? I can smell you from here.”

“How the fuck did you get here so fast?”

“The doctor called. The not-league one. Said you missed an appointment. Grumbled something I won’t repeat.”

That caused Dabi’s brows to rise. “What, afraid to repeat filthy words in case your media presence catches it?”

Hawks barked out a laugh, tugging his own gloves off and gesturing for Dabi’s arms again. He relented, shrugging out of his coat and giving Hawks one of his arms. The skin was already pulling back from the seams on his hand. Hawks gently pressed against the skin with his fingertips, gauging the heat that was still trapped within. It wasn’t the first time Hawks had done this- at this point, most of the league has helped Dabi at one point or another. Some, like Spinner and Hawks, because the smell bothered them. Others, like Toga, because she was forever fascinated by the way his seams would bleed. Twice and Shigaraki and oddly enough, Compress, were those who actually seemed sincerely concerned about him, although all three expressed such in wildly different fashions.

“No. I won’t repeat it because I have no idea how to make those sounds with my mouth. I’m a bird, not a cat.” Hawks said before his focus was completely on Dabi’s arms. Dabi let the hero work. It was actually fascinating to watch the switch between the celebrity mask and the hero mask. The true hero mask. The one that settled a little more heavily on his face, that seemed to fit just a smidge better than any other fake expression he wore.

Dabi’s stomach grumbled about halfway into letting Hawks tend to him. Not a breath later one of his feathers was hovering in front of him, carrying a manju on top of it. Dabi’s nose wrinkled.

“Do I want to know where that feather’s been?” Dabi asked, although he still took the manju from them. He bit into it, almost groaning in delight. This was from the store by Nakano station.

“It’s a short list. My back, the shower, my bed. It’s one of my auxiliaries. It doesn’t see much action.” Hawks said as he finished the arm. Dabi didn’t move, more amused to watch Hawks shuffle like a crab around to his other side instead of getting to his feet like a normal person.

By the time Dabi finished all the food in the bag and started working on the bottles of water, Hawks had moved to Dabi’s back, pushing Dabi’s shirt up in order to work on his shoulders. He tutted over them- grumbling about how if Dabi kept this up, the scarring was going to extend again. Dabi tuned him out, staring at the city skyline until more small feathers floated towards him, carrying a familiar pull bottle.

He eyed the pills warily, no matter how tempting it was to down a handful. The pain was starting to ramp up a notch, a residual burn that was quite familiar to him by now. It was also deep enough that there would be inflammation in the rest of his body by morning. It would settle in his joints and make walking and moving painful while his body attempted to heal from the overexertion, and that was before whatever side effects this fever decided to throw at him. He could feel the headache coming on, which was odd as he normally didn’t get headaches when sick.

The feathers shook the pill bottle insistently. He didn’t doubt that they were legit. Hawks probably got him good painkillers, unlike some of the dealers who like to swap out every other pill for a lookalike or grind them up and cut them with other things.

“You should take these,” Hawks said, voice tense. Dabi didn’t reach for the pills, just sipped at the water until it was gone. Another water bottle was offered and he took it.

“I’d rather not.”

“Yeah, well. If I can smell you that means you’re hurting so just take the pills. I can always call your doctor back and let her know.”

Dabi weighed the options. He could take the pain meds and be pain-free and a little out of it for twelve hours or he could piss off his doctor and annoy Hawks all at once. The latter was incredibly tempting, up until Hawks dug a knuckle into his ribcage.

“Fine- fine. See? I’m taking them.” Dabi said, snagging the bottle from the feathers, ignoring the sigh of relief from Hawks. As soon as the hero leaned forward to grab something, he elbowed the hero in the face.

“Fucking hell Dabi-” Hawks hissed, jerking back and gingerly touching his nose. Dabi hadn’t broken it. Hadn’t even bloodied it, the baby. Before he could react, one of the feathers chucked a water bottle at his face. His nose ached, and he was bleeding, although when he reached up to check it seemed to be coming from one of his seams and not his nose, no matter how much his nose was aching. Just what he needed. More pain.

“You’re such a dick.” Hawks grumbled, getting to his feet. Despite his grumbling, he still offered a hand to Dabi.

“Right back at you.” Dabi replied, tentatively feeling his face. None of the staples had popped. Just bleeding. He took Hawks’ hand, letting the hero pull him to his feet while a feather scooped up his coat and offered it to him like one of those gentlemen in the movies Toga’ watched. He shot Hawks a warning look, which the hero ignored.

He watched as Hawks gathered up everything, shoving the trash in one of the store bags and the rest of it in the backpack, which was then held out to him.

Shit, Dabi wasn’t going to say no to free medical supplies.

“Alright, well. I’ll leave you be. Meeting still on Thursday?” Hawks asked, shooting Dabi a quizzical look. “Dabi?”

Dabi wasn’t listening. Not really. He was too busy being frozen in place, eyes locked on Hawks’ bare wrist, at the small diamond that almost looked like a freckle. Hawks followed his gaze down.

“Fuck.” The hero hissed, dropping the backpack.

“HAWKS.” Dabi shouted, chasing after the hero. How Hawks was able to move so fast was beyond him, considering how much pain Dabi was in as he tried to get his muscles to stretch enough to give chase. Hawks glanced at him over a shoulder before taking a leap off the building, wings catching him.

Dabi watched as Hawks flew off, his nose throbbing with pain as he realized it wasn’t his own.

#bnha fic #bnha #dabihawks fic #dabihawks #my fic